donatário, the recipient of a capitania (captaincy), both a territorial division and a royal land grant in Portuguese colonies, especially Brazil. The Portuguese had used the captaincy system with success in the Madeira Islands and the Azores, and in 1533 King John III decided to employ it to consolidate Portuguese power in Brazil.
An elaborate set of regulations governed the system. In exchange for the land grant and certain tax immunities, the donatário was charged with the specific responsibilities of gathering settlers, caring for their spiritual welfare, and protecting them from attack, and with promoting agriculture and commerce. Most of the land of the captaincy, aside from the private grant of the donatário, was to be given to settlers. The donatário was to bear all the expenses of the captaincy himself. Each captaincy consisted of a portion of land from 25 to 60 or more leagues (75 to 180 or more miles) wide along the Brazilian coast and extending inland to the line (between 48° and 49° west of Greenwich) established by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), which divided Portuguese and Spanish colonial possessions.
The nearly monarchical powers theoretically possessed by the donatário were limited in practice by the difficulties in gaining actual control of his domain, of acquiring a sufficient labour force (enslavement of Indians was not easy, and black slaves were not imported in large numbers in the 16th century), of defending his captaincy from French incursions with almost no aid from the Portuguese government, and of mastering unruly colonists, most of whom were criminals or dissenters exiled from Portugal.
By 1549, of the 12 captaincies that had been set up in Brazil, only two showed a profit: Pernambuco, granted to Duarte Coelho Pereira, and São Vicente, granted to Martim Afonso de Sousa. To save the colony of Brazil, John III in 1549 dispatched Tomé de Sousa as captain general, along with a small band of Jesuits headed by Manuel da Nóbrega. Through their efforts and those of the succeeding captain general, Mem de Sá (1557–72), workable policies for the colony were formed and implemented, and vigorous attempts were made to gather the Indians into settlements. There were eight captaincies by 1580, and Brazil had become an economically viable, though not a wealthy, colony. Its capital was at Bahia. In time the donatários were supplanted by officials called captains or governors. By 1754 all the captaincies had been abolished.