António Raposo Tavares

António Raposo Tavares (1598–1658) was born in Alentejo and went to Brazil with his father in 1618, settling near São Paulo. In 1628 he led a bandeira of settlers and Tupi warriors against Jesuit-protected Guarani villages, taking thousands of captives and extending Portuguese rule east of the Uruguay River.

He fought the Dutch in the northeast in 1639–1642. His final bandeira, begun in 1648, covered more than ten thousand kilometres through the interior to Belém at the mouth of the Amazon. He returned to São Paulo and died in 1658.