This region had been abandoned by its donatário Martim Afonso de Sousa, who, uninterested in its settlement, directed his attention and resources to the area along the current São Paulo coast.

[1] In 1570, the then governor of the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro, Antônio Salema, assembled an army of Portuguese troops supported by catechized indigenous people to eliminate the French-Tamoio dominance that had persisted for twenty years along the coast.

A significant portion of its territory, extending from the area of the present-day city of Macaé to Itapemirim in Espírito Santo, including the largely unexplored interior, was incorporated into the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro.

[5] In 1679, after the Restoration of Portugal's Independence from Spain, Governor Manuel Lobo was ordered to establish a colony on the eastern side of the River Plate, which he named Colonia del Santíssimo Sacramento, in an expedition that gathered 400 soldiers recruited in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

The following year, after the Guaraní War, the captaincy lost the territory of the Misiones Orientales upon signing the Treaty of El Pardo with the Spanish but gained back the Colonia del Sacramento.

[7] In 1777, Spanish forces occupied the Captaincy of Santa Catarina but returned it the following year after the Treaty of San Ildefonso, which granted them the Pampas region of Rio Grande do Sul and the Colonia del Sacramento.