Augusto Ivan de Freitas Pinheiro and Eliane Canedo
Research and contributions: Cristiane Titoneli
The Gamboa District
An indigenous word, ‘gamboa’ means a fish-trap: a small artificial pool close to the sea that fills with fish as the tide rises. This was thus the term the best described the cove at the foot of the Morro do Livramento hill, fringed by a strip of white sand with a few fishermen’s huts facing a calm sea teeming with fish. Over time, it gave rise to the neighborhood that sprang up in the outskirts of the Pinto and Livramento hills, also extending over the narrow strip of coastline framing two beautiful inlets, known as the Praia da Gamboa beach during the XVIII century.
Separating this bucolic spot from the rest of the city, the slopes of the Morro do Livramento hill were covered only by large country estates, with few buildings and a rural appearance. Writer Machado de Assis (1839-1908) was born in one of them, and lived there during his childhood. A member of the Brazilian Academy of Literature, he was the son of a couple who worked in the house, growing up in the care of his godmother who owned the estate: Maria José de Mendonça Barroso. She died in 1845 during a measles epidemic.
During the first half of the XIX century, the only way to reach the Enseada da Gamboa inlet was along the Caminho da Gamboa track, which ran through the valley between the Livramento and Saúde hills, close to the Cemitério dos Pretos Novos Cemetery. This is why it was renamed Rua do Cemitério after it became a proper road, today known as the Rua Pedro Ernesto.
Despite this difficult access, the beauty and tranquility of this location began to attract some wealthier families, who built beautiful mansions along the shore. Well away from the bustle and filth of the downtown areas, the Enseada da Gamboa inlet was an ideal place to live: it offered all the advantages of the beachfront, and was protected from the bustle of the Port by the peninsula formed by the Morro da Saúde hill.
It was also at this time that the Cemitério dos Ingleses cemetery was established close to the shore, at the initiative of Lord Strangford, an English nobleman who arrived in Rio de Janeiro in the entourage of King John VI. When he realized that there were only Roman Catholic cemeteries in the city, he purchased one of the estates, where he laid the bases for the British Burial Ground. From 1811 onwards, this was where European Protestants were buried. Set on the shore of the bay, this cemetery had its own jetty, where bodies could be offloaded from other parts of the region.
A British traveler and writer who lived in Rio during the 1820s, Maria Graham described the cemetery in her travel journal: “Today I rode out on horseback to the Protestant cemetery at the Praia da Gamboa beach, which I believe to be one of the most delightful places I have ever seen, with a beautiful panorama in all directions.”
Dating back to this period, another building that still remains in place today is the Hospital da Gamboa hospital and chapel. Both were built on the top of the hill around 1840, when Dr. Antônio José Peixoto – who studied medicine in Montpellier and Paris – leased an old estate where he wanted to set up a hospital.
The public health situation in the city was appalling, and this facility soon began to provide clinical and surgical care for travelers, with a ward for slaves. Due to the large numbers of patients, Dr. Peixoto requested a grant from the Imperial Academy of Medicine (Imperial Academia de Medicina) that underwrote the expansion of his Casa de Saúde sanatorium in late 1841, turning it into a small complex with several hospital buildings on top of the Morro do Cal hill, today renamed the Morro da Gamboa. With an outstanding location – facing the inlet, well ventilated, surrounded by lush vegetation and isolated from the city – it offered ideal conditions for patients to recover from contagious diseases, particularly yellow fever.
The first major outbreak in Rio lasted from 1849 to 1890 infecting 55% of the city’s entire population of 166,000 inhabitants, with 4,160 deaths. This was followed soon after by two other epidemics – smallpox and cholera – but the hospital was already better prepared to treat diseases. In 1852, the Commander-in-Chief of the French Naval Station in Brazil, Rear Admiral Dessoin, was so impressed by the efficiency and cleanliness of this establishment that he appointed it the official French Navy hospital: the Maison de Santé de la Marine Française.
However, after further severe epidemics, the Central Health Board ‘requisitioned’ this hospital from Dr. Peixoto in 1853, in order to integrate it with the emergency system for patients infected by epidemics, changing its name to the Enfermaria Nossa Senhora da Saúde. In neo-Gothic style, this hospital is still in operation today, always for philanthropic purposes, and now administered by the Santa Casa de Misericórdia.
Until the mid-XIX century, this part of the beach – with an arm of the sea extending inland to the Mangue de São Diogo mangrove swamp between the Saúde district and the Saco do Alferes cove – was still so beautiful and picturesque that it inspired countless artists of that time, as well their more recent counterparts:
But the summer solstice floods
Brought to Mata-Porcos
all the water-nymphs of the Serra da Carioca
water-nymphs from Trapicheiro
From Maracanã
From Rio Joana
And mermaids came from the deep sea as well,
stranded by the storm tide
on the landfills of Gamboa. 28
The city’s growing population and the steady increase in the activities of its Port soon affected not only the Gamboa district, but also the neighboring Saúde area. Once cheap, this land became highly coveted, particularly as the gentle slopes of the Morro da Gamboa hill were easy to settle. It was thus not long before the older estates were split into countless urban lots.
At the same time, the beautiful mansions lining the Gamboa shoreline were gradually being bought up by large landowners who owned estates in the downtown areas, now in the position of businessmen working with port activities, and needing areas close to the shore for new facilities.
Not by chance, one of the first storehouses on the Morro da Saúde hill was built on the slope facing the Gamboa docklands by Cândido Rodrigues Ferreira (nicknamed Ferreirinha) a silverware merchant who owned large tracts of land on the Morro da Saúde hill.
This transformation process speeded up from 1852 onwards, when the Baron da Gamboa – the largest landowner in this area – laid streets and carved up coffee plantations, orchards and mangrove swamps into urban lots.
One of the most important streets was the Rua do Saco do Alferes (currently Rua da América), running through the valley between the Morro do Pinto and Morro da Providência hills, and crossing the Mangue de São Diogo mangrove swamp (now the Cidade Nova district) as far as Rua do Catumbi Grande (now Rua Marquês de Sapucaí). Running parallel to the shoreline, the Rua da Gamboa already existed, but was expanded in order to link it to the wharf in the Saúde district. This established the main access routes between the shoreline, the downtown area and the docklands.
Construction of roofed jetties, depositories and mooring points speeded up along this section of the shoreline, reaching the Saco do Alferes cove and altering not only its natural contours, but also its urban and cultural characteristics. This launched the expansion of port activities into this region, sought by the Imperial Government since 1871, when consideration was given to building the Docas de Dom Pedro II at this site. However, it was only during the early XX century that this dream began to firm up with the sweeping urban renewal program undertaken by Mayor Pereira Passos, which was to change the Gamboa district once again.
Concealing its busy port life, these rolling hills would be strongly impacted, their gentle slopes coveted for housing, particularly among the poor. The squatter settlement on the Morro da Providência hill was to be the most memorable, as it introduced a new element that would change the physical, cultural, economic and social landscapes of Rio de Janeiro forever: its favela slums.
It was also in the Gamboa district that Rio’s first favela slum appeared. According to several sources, this began in 1897, when hundreds of soldiers left Bahia State after defeating the rebels in the Guerra de Canudos uprising headed by Antônio Conselheiro. Camped at the foot of the Morro da Providência hill, close to the War Ministry, they demanded their back pay, claiming the rewards promised for fighting in this battle: money and housing.
The story of the Canudos veterans firmed up into the origin myth of Rio’s favelas, although there were slums in the city long before this. According to Lícia do Prado Valladares, they waited for housing allocations for quite some time. However, as the government was still wavering, they decided to settle without authorization on an old plantation, set on the slopes of the Morro da Providência hill. Together with their wives – most of whom were camp followers providing the army with food and other goods – they squatted over much of this hill, with no urban planning or facilities. It was these vivandeiras who organized the construction (in 1901) of the chapel at the top of the hill (listed as a heritage site by IPHAN in 1986) where they enthroned a statue of Christ brought with them from upstate Bahia.