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History of Macaé


The History of Macaé from 1615 to 2003  

  Archive Foundation Macaé de Cultura
It all began 388 (three hundred and eighty-eight) years ago. Governor Gaspar de Souza was given the order to settle a group of about 200 (two hundred) Brazilian indians near the estuary of Macaé River and the smaller Leripe River (Rio das Ostras). The resistance which the fierce Goitacazes Indians offered in the region delayed the occupation of the Northern coast of the State of Rio de Janeiro. The occupation of Macaé began in 1630, when the Jesuits arrived in the Region. For further information on the past and present of Macaé, please read the press release which was prepared by the Municipal government of Macaé. Most of the research material was gathered by local historians, such as Professor Antonio Parada, and updated by local intellectuals such as the playright Ricardo Meirelles, who is the vice-Mayor of Macaé. (Commentary by Armando Rozário)

The History of Macaé

The first attempt to populate the region where the Municipality of Macaé is today happened at the beginning of the XVII century, when Portugal and Brazil were under the Spanish dominion. The threat from English pirates to the then called Capitania de São Tomé was decisive in the Spanish government’s resolution to order the regular occupation of the region. In 1615, Felipe II, King of Portugal and Spain ordered the General Governor, Gaspar de Souza, to lead and settle about 200 Indians in a village next to the mouth of Macaé River and into another one next to Leripe River (Rio das Ostras).

The resistance offered by the Goitacazes Indians during the colonization brought on a delay to the occupation of the North Coast of Rio de Janeiro State. The Portuguese thought these Indians were the "most terrible in Brazil, real human tigers", as described by friar Gaspar Madre de Deus. Agile warriors, the famous long haired Indians, were described by Bezerra de Menezes as "swimming Indians"; they had a high degree of Neolithic culture and were considered as the most developed Brazilian Indians.

The actual colonization started in 1630, when the Jesuits received an allotment of the Capitania de São Tomé, given by the then governor of Rio de Janeiro, Martins Corrêa de Sá. In 1634, the Jesuits made a corral at the foot of Santana Hill, and at the top of the hill they built the Santana chapel. On the allotment, the priests created two centers for settlement: the Macaé Farm, at the foot of the Santana Hill, with a sugar-mill, sugar cane and manioc root plantation, a school and a chapel; and the Imboassica Sugar-mill, with slave quarters, storehouses and manioc and sugar cane plantations.

However, up to the end of the XVII century, the efforts to colonize Macaé were ineffective, the city remained unprotected. In 1725, French pirates arrived and established themselves at the Santana archipelago, and from there they plundered the coast.

Beginning in 1759, after the Jesuits had been banished, the region started to receive new immigrants, consequently starting new farms and sugar-mills, and promoting it to the category of village named Vila de São João de Macaé, on the 29th. of July of 1813, official commemoration date for the City’s birthday. Macaé became independent on the 25th of January, 1814, when its territory was separated from that of Cabo Frio and Campos. The strengthening of resistance to slavery by the Lira dos Conspiradores Musical Society and the political action taken by the local railroaders in 1960, are episodes that have helped to define the Municipality’s personality.


Macaé: Quality of Life and Reference for Investments

At 182 kilometres from Rio de Janeiro, Macaé is considered to be a potential reference for investments and the town was ranked 4th in a stationwide study of quality of life performed by the CIDE Foundation.
Right after Petrobrás was established in Macaé, in 1978, together with another 126 companies rendering services to the oil industry, the small provincial town in the State of Rio de Janeiro turned into one of the most important municipalities in Brazil. In the first four years, Macaé`s population went from 30 thousand to 40 thousand inhabitants and the revenue arose 2,700%.

Macaé occupies second place in the ranking of the most stable economies of the State and is considered one of the best towns for making investments in the Country, based on a research performed by Simonsen Associados, published in the Exame Magazine. The parameters used for the research were the consumption potential, the available substructure, the population’s good scholastic level and the quality of life.

In a different research, performed by the Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada - IPEA (Applied Economic Research Institute), after having examined the economy’s behaviour in about five thousand Brazilian Municipalities, Macaé was found to be the seventh city that grew most from 1970 to 1996, taking into account the Produto Interno Bruto - PIB (Gross Internal Product) - per capita.

An international city

Since the 1980s, Macaé has been receiving technicians working in the oil sector from several parts of the world, but only recently it started to take on the status of an international city. Since this has been fully appreciated, the Municipal Government has been working on selling an image of the city abroad, and this project has brought many benefits to the social and economic areas.

Today, Macaé is part of the Rede Merco-Cidades (Merco-Cities Network), and is the only one of that group to have less than 500,000 inhabitants. Moreover, Macaé is associated to the Rede Urb-Al (Urb-Al Network) which brings together countries from the European Union and from Latin America, and is represented at all events promoted by the two networks. Furthermore, it is now the first city to be part of the ONIP board of associates - Organização Nacional da Indústria do Petróleo (National Organization of the Oil Industry).

Last March, the mayor, Sílvio Lopes, received a delegation of businessmen from Aberdeen, Scotland, an oil center on the North Sea, and returned the visit during the middle of May, taking with him a committee of Municipal Secretaries and Technical Staff. This fact represents the beginning of an exchange of administrative experiences between the two cities which share such a similar economic business.
More recently, the mayor received the United States General Consul in Rio de Janeiro and the president of the American Chamber of Commerce, who has announced the establishment of a business office in this city. The mayor was invited to take part in the Brazil Energy & Power Fair, in Houston, and also of the Urb-Al congress in Paris, all in the year 2001.

Source: The Municipal Government Of Macaé