The History of Belém refers to the history of this Brazilian municipality in the Northern Region of the country, the capital of the state of Pará, which had its origins in the 17th century in the indigenous region of Mairi, located 160 km from the equator.
Overview Until the beginning of the sixteenth century, Portugal showed no interest in the lands located at the mouth of the Amazon River; a fact possibly linked to the policies adopted by the royal courts of the first expansionist phase, more concerned with expanding their domains along the African coast and the East. However, the succession crisis that led to the union of the courts of Portugal and Spain, coupled with the threat of pirates and smugglers in the region near the equator, implied a change of attitude beyond the Treaty of Tordesillas. This accelerated a response in military terms materialized in expeditions for the expulsion of the invaders and the establishment of settlements along the borders. One of these was the expedition commanded by Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco (1566-1619) toward the mouth of the Amazon River.
The construction of a city in the middle of the Amazon rainforest was difficult regarding the change in the natural environment; colonizers faced flooded lands, intersected by streams, intense vegetation, and periods of heavy rain.
Belém had economic and political strengths, such as in 1621, when the colonial settlement was elevated to the category of the municipality with the denomination of "Santa Maria de Belém do Pará" or "Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão Pará". In 1625, the fiscal warehouse "Casa de Haver o Peso" was created and in 1654, due to the importance of the warehouse the "State of Maranhão" was renamed as "State of Maranhão and Grão-Pará". In 1751, Belém reached its first commercial peak and became the first capital of the Brazilian Amazon.
History
Etymology The toponym "belém" originates from the Hebrew "בית לחם" ("Beit Lehem"), literally meaning "House of Bread".
In 1621, the initial Portuguese colonial settlement "Feliz Lusitânia" (now Belém) was elevated to the category of the municipality with the name "Santa Maria de Belém do Pará" or "Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão Pará" (an homage to Mary mother of Jesus) - being called by the abbreviation "Belém do Pará" by King Philip III of Spain (1578-1621). The name can also be considered an homage to the western day of Christmas (December 25); the day when Captain Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco (1566 - 1619, former Captain-Mor of Rio Grande do Norte) left in 1615 from the city of São Luís to secure the dominion of the eastern Amazon and the riches of the Conquista do Pará.
European beginnings and colonization The region where Belém do Pará is located was initially the busy indigenous region of Mairi, home of the Tupinambá and Pacajás (under the command of cacique Guaimiaba). In 1580, the Portuguese invaded the area through the military expedition Feliz Lusitânia commanded by Captain Castelo Branco (at the behest of the king of the Iberian Union and Philippine dynasty, Manoel I), and established a colonial nucleus aiming to dominate the Amazon River, occupy the Conquista do Pará, or Empire of the Amazonas (located in the then Captaincy of Maranhão), and assure the dominance in Eastern Amazon and of the drogas do sertão (how spices from the region were called), which the foreigners disputed.
Thus, on January 12, 1616, the colonial settlement Feliz Lusitânia was founded at the mouth of the Piry Creek and the Amazon River, in a strategic position near the entrepôt of the Marajoara, with a fortress then called Forte do Presépio (today Forte do Castelo) containing the chapel of the patron saint Nossa Senhora de Belém (today the Nossa Senhora de Belém Cathedral). This colonial settlement was considered an island, as it was surrounded by the Piry igarapé and its tributaries, having been landfilled in 1803.
In the early years of the Conquista do Pará, there was a need for missionaries due to the existence of many peoples ("gentios"). Thus, in July 1617, the Capuchin friars of Santo Antonio: Cristóvão de São José, Sebastião do Rosário, Felipe de S. Boaventura and, Antônio de Marciana, founded in a remote part of the city the Convent of Una.
A period of battles against foreigners (Dutch, English, French) occurred to secure dominance in the eastern Amazon and against indigenous tribes in the colonization/slavery process to implement an economic model based on the exploitation of indigenous labor and local primary resources. This resulted in the Tupinambás Uprising, in which in January 1619, Tupinambá attack forces took the Castelo Fort. Gaspar Cardoso changed the course of the war by killing the Morubixaba warrior Guamiaba Tupinambá causing a suspension of the attack to hold the funeral.
Other Indian revolts occurred until July 1621, when in 1639, Bento Maciel Parente, sergeant major of the Captaincy of Cabo Norte, invested in the village of the Tapajós Indians, decimating them and dominating the Conquista do Pará. With the victory securing possession of the territory, King Philip II created the State of Maranhão (with headquarters in São Luís, encompassing the captaincies of Maranhão and Ceará), and transformed the Conquista do Pará into the Captaincy of Grão-Pará, with Bento Maciel appointed as Captain-Major of this new Captaincy. The village of Feliz Lusitânia was elevated to the category of municipality with the denomination of "Santa Maria de Belém do Pará" or "Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão Pará" (current Belém), when in 1650 the first streets of the region were built, originating the historical and first neighborhood called Cidade (current Cidade Velha) where the settlers raised their wattle and daub houses.
During his government, Bento Maciel Parente fortified the Presépio Fort, placing an artillery bastion with four pieces, a keep, and a lodge, renaming it "Castelo do Senhor Santo Cristo Fort ". Later on, he ordered other attacks against the Dutch invaders, expelling them from the colony.
In 1625, due to its strategic position at the mouth of the Amazon River, the Portuguese installed a fiscal warehouse called "Casa de Haver o Peso" (now the Ver-o-Peso market), to collect taxes on European products brought to Belém, and on those extracted from the Amazon destined for international markets, such as spices and beef from Marajó Island. In 1627, the importance of the Haver-o-Peso warehouse increased with the creation of the first patrimonial league by orders of Governor Francisco Coelho, a portion of land donated via a letter of sesmariaPortuguese system, adapted in Brazil, which regulated the distribution of land for agricultural production. to the City Council of Belém to boost the growth of the municipality. As a result, in 1654 the State of Maranhão was renamed "Estado do Maranhão e Grão-Pará", with the headquarters transferred to Belém, making it the first capital of Amazon (in 1772, this state was divided into the autonomous colony "Estado do Grão-Pará e Rio Negro").Schwarcz, L. M. (2015). Brasil: uma biografia. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.
Around 1676, 50 families of Azorean settlers arrived in the city (a total of 234 people), and it was necessary to open a street to house the new inhabitants, called Rua São Vicente, originating the second neighborhood called Campina. From that moment the city began to show a population increase and the neighborhood began to distance itself from the coast. At that time, the Barra Fortress and São Pedro Nolasco Fort were built.
During the Viagem Filosófica expedition, the naturalist and explorer Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira criticized the urbanization policy implemented by military engineers in Grão-Pará and the urbanization of Belém with the obstacle of swamps (especially the Piry Lake), considering unhealthy the establishment of settlements in swampy regions near rivers and forest regions with humid climate: prone to major floods, air contamination due to decomposition of organic matter, and proliferation of diseases. The pombaline administration found a problem in the urbanization policies, which considered only the geostrategic position in the foundation projects of the settlements, disregarding the sanitary conditions.
Ferreira, based on the philosophy of urbanization as a form of political control (associated with the birth of social medicine and medical architecture), proposed measures to enable the urban occupation of riverbanks, such as large works of water catchment and distribution, construction of wide streets aiming at the wide circulation of air, drainage of stagnant water in flooded areas of the city, construction of navigation and irrigation canals. Whereas this conception does not destroy the fortified-city urbanization model used in the Portuguese colonization process, water management occupied a prominent place in the urban policy of the eighteenth century, associated with studies of climate and water dynamics for the land occupation. The technical mastery of water was inscribed, in the Age of Enlightenment, in the valorization of agriculture, in the exploitation of natural resources, and in the circulation of goods with the development of the navy.
In the second half of the 18th century, there were urban reforms following the medical architecture that sought the health of the population, after many deaths due to epidemics in the first half of the century, such as measles that ravaged the city in 1749 and killed over 15 thousand people in the state. These were associated with the humid climate and flooding, such as the diseases malaria, smallpox, intermittent fevers, and bronchitis. The governor of the state of Pará implemented quarantines for the treatment of slaves arriving on the ships with smallpox, scurvy, and scabies, who were sent to the São José Hospice (1749), established in a location away from the city. Hospitals were also built in Belém, such as the Hospital da Caridade, with funds received from public donations, to serve the poor in the epidemic.
In 1772, the "State of Grão Pará and Maranhão" was divided into the "State of Maranhão and Piauí" and the "State of Grão-Pará and Rio Negro", with headquarters in Belém, which remained autonomous Portuguese colonies until 1823.
The health-oriented architecture transformed the spaces established in the projects for the water supply. Many buildings in the city had wells, such as the convent of Santo Antônio of the Jesuits and the governor's palace. In 1783, the "Casa da mãe d'água" was built to supply water to the Governor's Palace and part of the city. The obstacles of nature were overcome through reason and art, expressing the domination of nature by man, following the principle of enlightenment.
19th century In 1822, with the independence of Brazil (a process of political rupture), the captaincies were transformed into provinces. But the Captaincy of Grão-Pará faced a time of indecision, in which it would either become independent, join the central government of Brazil, or continue to be linked to Portugal. This happened due to some aspects such as: The local elite (bourgeoisie and landowners) being strongly linked to the Metropolis (who commanded the exports of the exploited products), the influence of the Liberal Revolution of 1820 which provoked contradictory reactions in the province, the region being distant from the decision making centers of the Southeast region and the central government. The result was that integration with the Kingdom of Brazil was not accepted.