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Capitães-Mor were impoverished Portuguese noblemen given strips of land to settle in Terra de Vera Cruz in Brazil. They held absolute powers in their lands, subject only to the Crown. Most of these settlements failed, and their nominal dominions were actually haphazardly settled by colonists and Jesuit Reductions, and ultimately the land was incorporated first into the only succeeding Capitanias de São Vicente and Pernambuco, which then became the vice-kingdom of Brazil and Grão-Pará.
Their absolute power was continued by the tradition of Coronelism that endures to this day in the northeast of the nation.