Pedro Teixeira (b.1570-1585 - d.4 July 1641), occasionally referred to as the Conqueror of the Amazon, was a Portuguese explorer and military officer, who became, in 1637, the first European to travel up and down the entire length of the Amazon River, he also headed the government of the captaincy of Pará in two different periods, one in 1620-1621 and another in 1640–1641.
Teixeira was born either in 1570 or 1585 at the Vila of Cantanhede, born to a noble family, he was a Knight of the Order of Christ and a Portuguese nobleman in service of the royal family, he married Ana Cunha in Praia, Azores, daughter of Sargento-Mor Diogo de Campos Moreno, with whom Teixeira fought together in Maranhão
First arriving in Brazil on 1607, Teixeira participated in Portugal's campaign against French Maranhão, he fought in the Battle of Guaxenduba and distinguished himself commanding either the fort of Natividade or Santa Maria.
Because of Teixeira and other Portuguese who pushed into the depths of the Amazon, Portugal was able to obtain far more of South America from their Spanish competitors than the Treaty of Tordesillas had granted in 1494. Teixeira's expedition became the first simultaneously to travel up and down the Amazon River. He was called by the Indian natives Curiua-Catu, meaning The Good and Friendly White Man.
Early Colonization of Pará
Pedro Teixeira was part of Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco's expedition to found the city of Belém. On 9 August 1616, by orders of Francisco Caldeira, he left with two armed canoes to fight the Dutch and English, which had established positions in the northern shore of the Amazon River, where he captured a Dutch ship in the Xingu estuary and brought its artillery guns to Belém. In 1617, he also led attacks against the Tupinambás, aiding an ongoing campaign by Portuguese settlers in Maranhão, with the goal of a clearing a land road between Belém and São Luis.
In 1620, when Custodio Valente, the Capitão-Mor in charge of Pará left for Portugal. Teixeira, his adjunct, became interim governor of the Captaincy. During this period, Bento Maciel Parente made an attempt to take the captaincy for himself by force, but facing resistance by Pedro Teixeira, left for Maranhão. However, Parente is later given the position by the Governor of Brazil, and immediately gave orders for Teixeira to leave and lead another expedition against the natives.
In 1623, he commanded a large-scale operation to destroy the Dutch fort of Mariocai, where he and Bento Maciel Parente raised the fort of Santo Antônio to protect the surrounding area against foreign incursions, the settlement around the fort would later be known as the town of Gurupá.
He also lead several more campaigns and expeditions in the Amazon defeating the Dutch in their forts of Orange and Nassau, both in the Xingu River, and on 23 May 1625 assaulted the shared Dutch and English fortress of Mandiatuba(Maniutuba?) on the Xingu River, facing the forces of Dutch commander Nicolau Ouaden, who briefly fled to the Island of Tucujus where he and the English commander Philip Pursell, both of whom were killed by Teixeira's forces in Tucujus, in the same month he stops a new attempt by the Dutch to occupy the islands in the Amazon Delta and on 21 October 1625 he defeated the Dutch in the fort of Taurege(Tourege/Torrego), expelling the Dutch from their holdings in the Amazon basin.
In 1626, Manuel de Sousa d'Eça, Capitão-Mor of Pará, ordered Pedro Teixeira to procure native slaves. Teixeira left Belém with 26 soldiers and a Capuchin friar, visiting two native villages, one of Tapuyusús Indians which he bribed, and another of Tapajós Indians, who refused to trade men for goods.
In September 1629, Teixeira besieged the English Fort of Taurege, where he defeated two enemy sorties and on 24 October 1629 the help that was sent to relieved the fort's forces, with the garrison led by James Pursell surrendering in the same day and being sent to Belém. This earned a reprisal on 26 October 1929, led by the English Captain, Roger North, who attacked Teixeira in the Fort of Santo Antônio in Gurupá, where Teixeira triumphed and rebuked the English assault, North, defeated left to found the fort of Camaú.
Amazon Expedition
1637: Upriver Journey
In 1637, two Franciscan friars, André de Toledo and Domingos de La Brieba, under threats from nearby natives, abandoned their mission on the Amazon River and, with six soldiers, paddled a canoe up the entire length of the river to the Portuguese settlement of Gurupá, from where they left to Belém, and later to São Luís.