São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga

São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga (Saint Paul of the Fields of Piratininga in Portuguese) was the village that developed as São Paulo, Brazil in the region known as Campos de Piratininga. It was founded as a religious mission and a Jesuit Royal College by priests José de Anchieta and Manuel da Nóbrega on January 25, 1554 (the date of the first mass and the anniversary of Saint Paul's conversion). The village was initially populated by Portuguese colonists and two tribes of the Guaianás Amerindians. Later, São Paulo was the base of the Bandeiras, which was the great colonial expansion of the 17th century into the interior of the territory.

Early European colonisation of Brazil was very limited. Portugal was more interested in trade with Africa and Asia. But with English and French privateer ships just off the coast, the Portuguese Crown believed it needed to protect claims to this territory. To share the burden of defence, the Portuguese King João III divided the coast into "captaincies", or swathes of land, 50 leagues apart. He distributed them among wealthy, well-connected Portuguese, hoping that each would take care of his territory. Fearing attacks by the numerous Amerindian tribes, João III discouraged development of the territory's vast interior.

The first coastal settlement in Brazil, São Vicente, was founded in 1532. It was the first permanent Portuguese colony to thrive in the New World. Twenty-two years later the Tibiriçá Chief and Jesuit missionaries Manuel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta founded the village of São Paulo dos Campos de Piratininga 68 kilometres (42 mi) inland from São Vicente. Their mission village was settled on a plateau between the Tamanduateí and the Anhangabaú rivers. On January 25, 1554 the village was formally founded when the priests celebrated the inaugural mass of the Jesuit school.

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