Although the Albuquerque Coelhos, lords-proprietor of late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Pernambuco, have been carefully studied, there has been relatively little archival research on other principal families in that captaincy during this period. This paper presents an account of the Pais Barreto family, especially of the father, João Pais, and to a lesser extent, his son, João Pais Barreto, who were respective heads of the family from its founding in Pernambuco until about 1657. Because the Pais Barretos were not closely tied to the family of the lords-proprietor and at the same time were, by most reports, the richest senhores de engenhos in Brazil, their concerns and activities may be taken as archetypical of the affairs and aspirations of a rising colonial planter elite.