On all other of your suggestions, I'll take your word for it. This distinction, however, showed up often. I believe it was a short-lived distinction, but was made nonetheless. Is that a wellspread myth or something?
I googled up a bit. It was a region of Brazil, not a whole different country. States are the administrative divisions here. Just like in the US.
It was one damn huge one, but it was still part of Brazil.
It was awfully short lived (1772-1774), then split into two states who would eventually split up even further to form a shitton of northern states.
Still, a part of Brazil. Don't know why you made them a separate bonus.