Captaincy of Grão Pará

The Capitania of Grão-Pará, in English Captaincy of Grão-Pará (region initially called pa'ra, from Tupi-Guarani: "river-sea") was one of the administrative units of Colonial Brazil (in Portuguese America), created in 1621 along with the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, from the evolution of the Conquista do Pará (or Empire of Amazonas) a Portuguese colonial territory created in 1616 by Alexandre de Moura in the Captaincy of Maranhão.

Toponomy
The etymology of the name of the former administrative unit derives from the Pará river, whose name comes from the Tupi-Guarani "pa'ra", meaning "river the size of the sea" or "large river", due to its great sea-like extension, which cuts through the region and was believed to be a direct extension of the Amazon River.

History
The Captaincy of Grão-Pará has its origin in the context of the conquest of the Amazon River and Eastern Amazonia in 1580, a period of conflict with foreign forces vying for the so-called "drugs of the sertão" (spices from the area). The region was first called the Conquista do Pará, also known as the Empire of the Amazonas, having as "capital" the colonial villa Feliz Lusitânia (in homage to Portugal). The oldest document that makes mention of the term "capitania", to denominate the region of the conquest is posterior to the year 1620. Legitimating the territory as a captaincy occurred in parallel to the creation of the State of Maranhão, in the year 1621.