Vicente Rodrigues Palha was born in Matuim, about six miles north of the city of Bahia in 1564.
Like most learned men of the time, he studied in the Jesuit College of Salvador, Bahia, and later in the University of Coimbra where he majored.
He was a missionary in Paraíba, lived in Pernambuco and cooperated in the founding of the Franciscan house in Rio de Janeiro in 1607, becoming its first prelate.
The book is divided into 48 chapters describing the characteristics of the colony, its climate, fauna, flora, its name, the discovery, settlement and the division of hereditary captaincies, as well as the pressure of French and Dutch privateers in the Brazilian coast.
It is also one of the first studies on everyday life in the colony, reporting marriage customs, child rearing, funeral rites, indigenous languages and so on.