The first Huguenots to leave France sought freedom from persecution in Switzerland and the Netherlands.[citation needed] A group of Huguenots was part of the French colonisers who arrived in Brazil in 1555 to found France Antarctique. A couple of ships with around 500 people arrived at the Guanabara Bay, present-day Rio de Janeiro, and settled in a small island. A fort, named Fort Coligny, was built to protect them from attack from the Portuguese troops and Brazilian Native Americans. It was an attempt to establish a French colony in South America. The fort was destroyed in 1560 by the Portuguese, who captured part of the Huguenots. The Portuguese threatened the prisoners with death if they did not convert to Catholicism. The Huguenots of Guanabara, as they are now known, produced a declaration of faith to express their beliefs to the Portuguese. This was their death sentence. This document, the Guanabara Confession of Faith, became the first Protestant confession of faith in the whole of the Americas.[citation needed]
Prior to coming to Brazil, where did Huguenots go to escape religious persecution?