History of Ilha de Fernando de Noronha

style="mso-bidi-font-style:italic">not depicted on the 1502 Cantino map at all. Instead, they have proposed that Quaresma island and the accompanying red "inkblot" are in fact the Rocas Atoll, slightly misplaced on the map. This reserves the discovery of Fernando de Noronha island itself as indeed on August 10, 1503, by the Gonçalo Coelho expedition, as originally reported by Vespucci.

The transition of the name from "São João" to "Fernando de Noronha" was probably just natural usage. A royal letter dated May 20, 1559, to descendants of the Loronha family, still refers to the island by its official name of ilha de São João., but already in other places, e.g. the logbook of Martim Afonso de Sousa in the 1530s, it was referred to as the "island of Fernão de Noronha" ("Noronha" being a common misspelling of "Loronha"). The informal name eventually displaced the official name.

1500–1700

The Lisbon merchant Fernão de Loronha held not only Fernando de Noronha island as a hereditary captaincy but also (from 1503 to around 1512) a commercial monopoly on trade in Brazil. Between 1503 and 1512, Loronha's agents set up a string of warehouses (feitorias) along the Brazilian coast, and engaged in trade with the indigenous peoples in Brazil for brazilwood, a native red dye wood highly valued by European clothmakers. Fernando de Noronha island was the central collection point of this network. Brazilwood, continuously harvested by the coastal Indians and delivered to the various coastal warehouses, was shipped to the central warehouse on Fernando de Noronha island, which was intermittently visited by a larger transport ship that would carry the collected loads back to Europe. After the expiration of Loronha's commercial charter in