[1][2] Martim Afonso de Sousa was born in Vila Viçosa, and had been raised in the Duke of Bragança household and was a personal friend since childhood of King John III of Portugal, being also a cousin.

[2] When he left the service of the Duke of Bragança, in 1516, to stay at the court of the Royal House, he began to take mathematics, cosmography and geography classes with the chief cosmographer Pedro Nunes.

[1] After the death of Manuel I of Portugal, he accompanied the widowed Queen D. Leonor of Austria to Castile, where he married Ana Pimentel, from an illustrious Spanish family, around June 1523.

At the time, it was unusual for non-titled Portuguese noblemen to marry Spanish women who came - even if, as in this case, through female origin - from families of the greatness of Spain, so it can be concluded that Martim Afonso managed to successfully develop a strategy of marriage alliance with positive repercussions in terms of his political career and connections with power in the first court of the Iberian Peninsula.

[2] Threatened by the presence of French ships along the coast of Brazil, the Portuguese crown in December 1530 sent a fleet with 400 people led by Martim Afonso de Sousa to establish control and explore.

In both activities, Afonso de Sousa established a pattern followed by Portuguese colonizers and Brazilians for long afterward: the "entradas" and "bandeiras" – or explorations and raids into the interior – and the production of sugar along the coast for export.

He defended the trading post of Diu against Moors and Hindus, defeated the Zamorin of Calicut and fought the corsairs who plundered Portuguese vessels in the region.

He established a morgue, was a donatary captain of the captaincies of São Vicente and Rio de Janeiro, Commendator of Mascarenhas in the Order of Christ and Nobleman of the Council of King John III.