Owned by the Lisbon-based Companhia Colonial de Navegação, the ship was the second largest ship in the Portuguese merchant navy at the time and along with her sister ship, the was among the most luxurious Portuguese-flag liners of that time.
The ship was primarily used for colonial trade to the Portuguese overseas provinces of Angola and Mozambique, in Africa, and migrant transportation to Brazil. The ship's mid-Atlantic service was also viewed as rather out of the ordinary: Lisbon to Madeira, to Tenerife, to La Guaira, to Curaçao, to Havana (later San Juan), and lastly Port Everglades. The average trade for this gray-hulled ship was mostly migrants toVenezuela and the general passenger traffic.
