Brites de Albuquerque, Beatriz de Albuquerque, (c. 1507–1584Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, História Geral do Brasil, Melhormentos, São Paulo, v. 1) was a noble, a colonial administrator in the Portuguese colony of Brazil. She was the first woman to serve as governor in a colony in the New World.
Biography Scion of the Albuquerques Dona Brites was daughter of Lopo de Albuquerque and Joana de Bulhão. a cousin of Afonso de Albuquerque and Garcia de Noronha both viceroys of India, and sister to Matias de Albuquerque, viceroy of India, all descendants of King Dom Dinis (1279–1325).Francis A. Dutra. "Duarte Coelho Pereira, First Lord-Proprietor of Pernambuco: The Beginnings of a Dynasty", The Americas 29:4 (April 1973), pp. 415–441. She married Duarte Coelho donatario (Lord Proprietor) of Pernambuco and with him settled in the New World in 1535.C. R. Boxer, "Jorge d' Albuquerque Coelho: A Luso-Brazilian Hero of the Sea, 1539–1602", Luso-Brazilian ReviewVol. 6, No. 1 (Summer, 1969), p. 3 Three children are known, Duarte Coelho de Albuquerque, second donatario, Jorge de Albuquerque Coelho, Third Donatario, and Inês de Moura.
Dona Brites, assisted by her brother Jeronimo, governed Pernambuco three or four times, first during her husbands trip to Portugal in 1540–1541, again beginning during his final trip to Portugal in 1553, and continuing as governor and administrator of the estate during the minority and absence of their son Duarte, the heir, until 1560,David P. Henige, Colonial Governors from the Fifteenth Century to the Present, 1970, p. 254 again in 1572 (and 1573) as representative of her son Duarte, and probably continuously until 1582 but possibly once again from an unknown date until her death sometime before 1584.Francisco Augusto Pereira da Costa, "Capitães-móres governadores loco-tenentes dos donatários de Pernambuco". Revista do Instituto Archeológico e Geographico Pernambucano, Recife, n. 50, 1897, pp. 59–61
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