This article focuses the Brazilian colonial landscape. We analyze the pattern constructed by Capistrano de Abreu and improved by Caio Prado Júnior that is still a reference to the national historiography, and compare it with the descriptions made by the 16th century chroniclers. Our purpose is to raise facts about the indigenous forms of occupation and use of the land and its resources that outline the scenery visualized by the chroniclers at the first century of the Portuguese colonization. We want to show that the Brazilian coast, at that time, was a frontier zone.
Landscape; Colonial Brazil; 16th century chroniclers
