Augusto Ivan de Freitas Pinheiro and Eliane Canedo
Research and contributions: Cristiane Titoneli
Under the sign of gold
It may be said that the XVI century ended in Brazil with the discovery of gold in Minas Gerais State and the expulsion of invading French troops, headed by Admiral Villegagnon, from the Forte Coligny fort, ending the dream of an Antarctic France.
For this new settlement, the immediate consequence was the transfer of two hundred residents from the village of São Sebastião in 1567, moving them from the flimsy palisade raised by the Portuguese between the Sugarloaf and Cara de Cão hill to the safer and better-guarded heights of the Morro da Saudade and São Januário hills, with the latter subsequently renamed Morro do Castelo hill. Protected from the hostile environment of these floodlands, as well as attacks by local Tamoyo tribespeople and French Huguenots, from there they could keep watch over the entrance to the Guanabara Bay and repel hostile foreign visitors.
From that site the settlement expanded onto the floodplain, making the necessary improvements to its new Port that extended along the Praia de Manuel de Brito beach from the Fortaleza de Santiago fortress (after Ponta do Calabouço point) as far as the rocky slopes of the hill of the same name. Subsequently renamed São Bento, it was here that Benedictine monks lived and built their monastery and church during the XVII century.
The large flat area that is today the Praça XV de Novembro plaza did not exist back then. It was built up over time through makeshift landfills nibbling away at the bay, and then by landfills during the XVII century. For more than a century, new arrivals disembarked from their vessels at the pioneering Rua Direita street running in front of the Terreiro do Carmo monastery.
Lasting throughout almost the entire XVII century, this initial expansion phase endowed the city with a quadrilateral shape, bounded by four hills: Castelo, São Bento, Santo Antônio and Conceição.
A large marsh extended from the foot of the Morro de São Bento as far as the base of the Morro do Castelo on one side, and on the other stretched to the bottom of the Morro da Conceição hill, which at that time was well away from the floodplain over which the city was expanding.
At that time, the region that today encompasses the Saúde, Gamboa and Santo Cristo neighborhoods was just a small strip of sand on the shore of the bay, running as far as Praia Formosa beach in the Saco de São Diogo cove. This is why the slopes of the Livramento and Conceição hills were viewed as the outskirts of the city, with flimsy links to its urban fabric, despite a few country estates.
At that time (1660), the city had 3,850 inhabitants: 3,000 indigenous tribespeople, 750 Portuguese settlers and 100 Black people. Granted the imposing title of Very Loyal (Muy Leal) by King John IV of Portugal, it ranked high in the hierarchy of cities in colonial Brazil.7