portugal's approach changed over time. initially brazil was just a marginal territory with small coastal towns dotting the shores and portugal's focus was somewhere else in the indian ocean. however that started to shift in the seventeenth century, during a period were several factors coincided: sugar production boomed, along with the discovery of gold in what today is minas gerais (general mines, in portuguese) & the beggining of the ciclo do ouro, the decline of the portuguese in the east & the newly recovered independence of the braganzas. all this allowed the portuguese, despite their weakness, to have a spot on the table of international trade - which they would just dream of without their colonies. anyway in the long run, the entity that benefited the most from portuguese trade was neither brazil nor portugal... but britain...
as robto mentioned before the earliest spanish approaches were monopolized & financed by the spanish catholic crown. within few years, the endeavors were indeed carried out by some landless aristocrats or aristocrat-wanna-be's, however not only executed by them: the spanish conquistador also needed to obtain the funds for his campaign. this usually implicated that he actually got himself into huge debts, and guess what: repaying that debt was number one thought in his head, and also number two and probably number three, too. hence this was a major motivation for the looting & explotation, for some rather witless fellas getting drowned in lake texcoco by the weight of the aztec gold or for the treacherous smiles after atahualpa promised to get a room filled with silver up to the roof. paradoxically, as we usually reason with some of my spanish friends, all these great stolen treasures didn't remain in the hands of the spanish for long, since soon just fed the coffers of some german bankers due to the stupid european adventurism of the habsburg monarchy.
anyway for this initial stage of colonialism, doesnt matter who ended up profiting, the lesson is the same, someone in europe did profit, profited greatly. these profits funded political schemes, ambitions, wars (and wars of religion), the most delicate perfumes, ridiculous wigs, pre-revolutionary lavish cakes and much more. we can also certainly tell colonial profits (from the new imperialism) also funded europe's assisted suicide by the dawn of the twentieth century, also known as world war one.
regards.
