BrazilandAND⤬THE JUNCTION
4 SHARED EVENTSFrance

Entangled histories

4 events in which either nation’s sourced chronicle names the other — including under earlier names of the same state. Each is the same record, with the same sources, as on its own chronicle; nothing here was written for this page.

ONE SPINE OF YEARS · TWO WALLS OF EVENTS · BRA LEFT · FRA RIGHT

1. 11 April 1713

   Treaty of Utrecht names the “Japoc or Vincent Pinson”

   Article 8 fixes the France–Portugal frontier in Guiana on a river of that name. Brazil later argued it was the Oyapock and France that it was the Araguari, a disagreement settled by arbitration in 1900.

   Politics & Power · from the France chronicle · The Medieval & Early-Modern Kingdom · REFS 1 — Arbitral award on the Brazil/French Guiana boundary, 1 December 1900

2. 1808-1821

   The court moves to Rio

   Fleeing Napoleon, the Portuguese royal court relocates to Rio de Janeiro, which becomes the seat of the empire and is opened to wider trade.

   Politics & Power · from the Brazil chronicle · Portuguese Colony: Sugar, Slavery, and Gold · REFS 2 — Brazil, Linha do Tempo da Independência

3. 1 December 1900

   Swiss arbitration fixes the Brazil–French Guiana border

   The Swiss Federal Council rules at Bern that the “Japoc or Vincent Pinson” of the Treaty of Utrecht is the Oyapock, as Brazil had argued, not the Araguari as France had. The border follows the Oyapock and, inland, the Tumuc-Humac watershed.

   Politics & Power · from the France chronicle · The Republics & the Modern Nation · REFS 2 — Arbitral award on the Brazil/French Guiana boundary, 1 December 1900, Coopération transfrontalière franco-brésilienne (rapport r22-846)

4. 2017

   Oyapock bridge opens

   The bridge across the Oyapock between Saint-Georges-de-l’Oyapock and Oiapoque, finished in 2011, opens in 2017. France and Brazil share a border of more than 730 km, which the Sénat describes as France’s longest land border.

   Economy & Trade · from the France chronicle · The Republics & the Modern Nation · REFS 1 — Coopération transfrontalière franco-brésilienne (rapport r22-846)