Pôrto Seguro

Pôrto Seguro, port town on the Brazilian coast. Pôrto Seguro, Bahia, has been called the cradle of post-indigenous Brazil, and it was here that Pedro Cabral landed on his voyage of discovery in 1500. Impressed by the physical beauty of the region as well as by the Tupi people, the Portuguese claimed the new territory as rightfully theirs in accordance with the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494). In what he called the Land of the Holy Cross, Cabral left behind a number of degredados (Portuguese undesirables, mainly criminals); a scant year later reinforcements arrived, including members of the clergy. It was in Pôrto Seguro that the first extractive industry of Brazil began, based on cutting stands of brazilwood (pau brasil) or dyewood (pau da tinta). The red dye from the wood yielded a profitable commodity eagerly sought by the European textile market. Ironically, Pôrto Seguro today has one of the few stands of coastal forest left along the Brazilian littoral. In the eighteenth century, the Comarca of Pôrto Seguro, in the shadow of more developed Salvador da Bahia, was revitalized with a town-building program. Even more regimented than the Pombaline towns of the Amazon region, the Pôrto Seguro townships of Vila Viçosa, Portalegre, and Prado (with both Indian and European colonists) formed the backbone of a trade network that shipped cotton, grain, and fish to Bahian sugar planters. Declared a historic city, Pôrto Seguro is now a popular tourist attraction in Brazil.

See alsoBrazil, Geography; Forests.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Odália, Nilo. As formas do mesmo: Ensaiso sobre o pensa-mento historiográfico de Varnhagen e Oliviera Vianna. São Paulo: Editora UNESP Fundacão, 1997.

Ortega Fontes, Armando. Bibliografia de Varnhagen. Rio de Janeiro: Ministerio de relacões exteriores, 1945.

Telles, Vera; Sergio Telles. Porto Seguro: História estórias. Rio de Janeiro: L. Christiano Editorial, 1987.

                                       Roberta M. Delson