Sá, Estácio de (c. 1520–1567)

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Sá, Estácio de (c. 1520–1567)

Estácio de Sá (b. c. 1520; d. 20 February 1567), nephew of Mem de Sá, Brazil's third governor-general, who had initially expelled French intruders from Guanabara Bay. In January 1565, Estácio sailed from Bahia de Todos os Santos to Guanabara Bay, where he found that the French had returned and were too strongly entrenched to be dislodged by his forces. Accordingly, he withdrew to Santos to await reinforcements. Upon his return to Guanabara Bay in March 1565, he founded a fortified outpost near the base of Sugar Loaf Hill, the nucleus of the future city of Rio de Janeiro. A year later Sá was wounded while leading his forces on Glória Hill. He died of his wounds just as Mem de Sá was refounding the city on Castle Hill, opposite the island of Villegaignon.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Luis Norton, A dinastia dos Sás no Brasil (1953).

Herbert Ewaldo Wetzel, Mem de Sá: Terceiro governador geral (1557–1572) (1972).

Additional Bibliography

Vainfas, Ronaldo. Dicionário do Brasil colonial, 1500–1808. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2000.

                                          Dauril Alden