At the end of the 17th century, sugar exports started to decline[39] but beginning in the 1690s, the discovery of gold by explorers in the region that would later be called Minas Gerais (General Mines) in current Mato Grosso and Goiás, saved the colony from imminent <a href="http://hmqoxzsrkzs.com">cop.[lsela40]</a> From all over Brazil, as well as from Portugal, thousands of immigrants came to the mines.