ROOTS OF THE NORTHEAST

Today is May 18th, 2020, where all the history is related to the Brazilian Northeast, which I describe here in everything with great respect and love about my land. For cultural simplicity I want to talk about its origins and start a tradition that our people started when everything is said that the northeast was the cradle of European colonization in the country, since it was the discovery or discovery of Brazil that refers, in Luso-Brazilian historiography, to the arrival of the fleet led by Pedro Álvares Cabral to the territory called Ilha by Vera Cruz, which took place on April 22, 1500. This discovery is part of the Portuguese expeditions and discoveries and news of the finding of Brazil was reported by the expedition's registrar, Pero Vaz de Caminha. The Portuguese remained in Brazilian territory until May 2, 1500, when, then, they continued their journey towards India, the great objective of the expedition. The arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil is one of the final results of the great navigations, the oceanic exploration that took place throughout the 15th century. Although the Spaniards first arrived in the American continent, the Portuguese are considered to be the pioneers in this process of exploration, making great “discoveries” in that period.

The pioneering role of the Portuguese was studied by historians and justified on the basis of political, economic and geographical factors. First point of emphasis refers to political stability and the fact that Portugal had a unified territory for centuries. In the territorial case, the Portuguese had expelled the Moors in 1249. In comparison, Spain, for example, fought against the Moors until 1492, and the English and French fought each other, in the Hundred Years War, until 1453.

In my role, I show a more constructive training between the discovery of Brazil and about colonization that we can understand in more depth how it all started and the origin of our people that tells many stories that always make us react on a more traditional aspect today for the Northeastern man who has always played his most constructive and demonstrative role in the construction of his state, which formalizes us among various arts involving certain cultures that the people did not have before colonizing. The Northeasterner who always suffered from the beginning and went through several transformations that today we can understand his point and education that formalized us between different arts and cultures that are practically showing us the growth and evolution of our people about a purpose that we see tells us today as can the country man who was born in the catinga to the macaw stick who always suffered from drought in northeastern Brazil and did not have easy and good education due to the infrastructure and political norms of our country that today has an incomparable level of homeless people, without studies , without jobs in which we total more than one billion Northeasterners who have always suffered unemployment, hunger and helplessness that makes us think about how our Brazilian Northeast is today that we can assume certain progress between the art and culture of the Northeastern people that effectively shows us their power, work and culture over other social classes in the world where we can understand their history and relationships with music, xaxado and baião in which today they are cultural examples of a history that we make films, music in which it can be like a point of restoration in which the people of the Northeast are made to be more idealistic as certain artists who marked a history like Luiz Gonzaga do Nascimento (Exu, December 13, 1912 - Recife, August 2, 1989) was a Brazilian composer and singer. Known as the King of Baião, he was considered one of the most complete, important and creative figures in Brazilian popular music.

Singing accompanied by his accordion, zabumba and triangle, he took the musical culture of the northeast to the whole country, such as baião, xaxado, xote and forró pé de serra. His compositions also described the poverty, sadness and injustice of his arid land, the northeastern hinterland.

Admired by the most diverse artists, Luiz Gonzaga gained notoriety with the anthological songs Asa Branca (1947), Seridó (1949), Juazeiro (1948), Forró de Mané Vito (1950) and Baião de Dois (1950).

He was born on Friday, December 13, 1912, in a clay house on Fazenda Caiçara in the Araripe village, km from the urban area of the municipality of Exu, in the extreme northwest of the state of Pernambuco, a city located km from Recife. He was the second son of Ana Batista de Jesus Gonzaga do Nascimento, known in the region as 'Mãe Santana', and the eighth of Januário José dos Santos do Nascimento. Father José Fernandes de Medeiros baptized him at the headquarters of Exu on January 5, 1920.

His name, Luiz, was chosen because December 13 is the feast day of Santa Luzia, Gonzaga was suggested by the vicar who baptized him, and Nascimento for being December, the month in which Christianity celebrates the birth of Jesus.

The city of Exu is at the foot of the Serra do Araripe, and would inspire one of his first compositions, Pé de Serra. His father worked in the fields, in a large estate, and in his spare time he played the accordion; also repaired the instrument. It was with him that Luiz learned to play the instrument. Very young, he performed at dances, forrós and fairs, initially accompanying his father. Authentic representative of northeastern culture, he remained true to his origins even following a musical career in southeastern Brazil. The musical genre that enshrined it was baião. The emblematic song of his career was Asa Branca, composed in 1947 in partnership with Ceará's lawyer Humberto Teixeira.

Before eighteen, Luiz had his first crush: Nazarena, a girl from the region. He was rejected by her father, Colonel Raimundo Deolindo, who did not want him to be his son-in-law, as he was uneducated, too young and not mature enough to make a commitment. Angry with the boy and threatened him with death. Even so Luiz and Nazarena dated on the sly for months and planned to get married. Januário and Ana, Luiz's parents, gave him a beating when they found out that he got involved with the girl without her family's permission, and even more because Luiz dishonored her: the two said this on purpose, in order to be forced to get married. At the time, the girl had to marry a virgin and if there was sexual intercourse before marriage, the man was forced to marry or die. Nazarena revealed to her father what happened and was beaten by him, however Nazarena did not become pregnant. Colonel Raimundo was enraged and tried to kill the boy, who faced him in the fight. Raimundo reveals that, even if dishonored, she would arrange a wedding for her daughter with an older friend who already knew about her situation, or intern her in a convent, but with Luiz she would not marry. Revolted for not being able to marry Nazarena, and for not wanting to die at the hands of her father, Luiz Gonzaga went to Fortaleza and joined the army on June 5, 1930. For nine years he traveled through several Brazilian states, as a soldier, without give news to the family. In August 1932 he went to Belo Horizonte, where he stayed for four months. That same year he moved to Juiz de Fora, where he lived for five years and had the opportunity to improve his ability with the accordion. Then he went to Ouro Fino, also in Minas Gerais, where he stayed for two years. He was discharged on March 27, 1939, in Rio de Janeiro.

I want to explain with more quality that the Northeast for a long time gained a certain space that would not convert him with what he spent around him for many years that made the rural man who suffered and still suffers several infractions that can always reflect in the Northeast as a basis for cultural and even historical foundations for those who are now seeing the Northeast undergoing a great financial and dry crisis that we put into practice as functions that we can always show their more narrative side of those people who suffered and that many are today great people have shown their role and tell your story about a side more related to cinema, music that freed us in a more creative way than for those who see the northeast so fragmented by certain relevances of the country man that we see in his image his most evolutionary role in which we can believe in its independence being above all the most fertile northeast for the eyes of today that roll between var ias stories and music from the life of the northeasterner in which he only felt with the heat of the sun that burns him in solitude among various ways of living and that his theme would be to live on hard tiring jobs in which we can value his struggle, performance in one place vast as the sea that unforgettablely would become independent and that the sea could in a few years become sertão as the sertão could perhaps become the sea and that certainly the theory may be more linked in a conviction that the sea could take spaces in moving to the it is harsh because it certainly looks like a sea, the hinterland itself being a true sunny sea where the sun always rises higher and that is where the hinterland man who always suffered and took care of a home life, rodeo and struggle that is related to all history about a past that we always remember from the sertão.

There are two versions to explain the origin of the word Sertão during the colonization of Brazil by the Portuguese. The first maintains that when they left the Brazilian coast and went inland, they noticed a great climatic difference in this semi-arid region. For that reason, they called it "desert", caused by the hot and dry climate. Therefore, this name was understood as "de sertão", leaving only the word Sertão. The second, more reliable version, describes the word as being derived from the Latin word sertanus, which means deserted or uninhabited area, which in turn derives from sertum, which means forest.

The first process of interiorization of the colonizers in the country occurred in this between the 16th and 17th centuries. With the lack of opportunities on the coast, where sugarcane crops predominated, populations moved inland, which specialized in grazing, such as cattle raising. The area was occupied by groups of European and mestizo origin, of scarce resources, who miscegenated continuously with the indigenous peoples of the sertão, despite the hostility existing between cowboys and Indians.

The development of livestock by enabled the clearing in the hinterlands. The cattle tracks thus created allowed the articulation and interchange between the northeastern coast and the interior, giving rise to several cities. The São Francisco River constituted a natural entry way to the Sertão, expanding the extension of the area involved in these exchanges.

Certainly seeing the northeastern man shows us an immense greatness that few value his history and that this man can be more than a man because he is like a lion always working, working hard as an example of a goat that is in philosophy simply focused on a being that one cannot doubt his arguments and tradition that, due to his greatness, man's dominance over the fascination of living has established himself, which has always led him to conquer a more violent standard of life and that we can certainly understand his role and value that would be the male goat you sir who always established in his history and tradition that to be a man you have to be born in the hinterland because contagious life can show a more comprehensive theory of a being who was born and raised on eternal suffering and that one day his image sprang up like a rose about the nation that established order, discipline, justice and honor and that to be a man you have to be born cured of a snake and a serpent look like you even though doubted her and even if she has excuses or doubts about something and if they want to doubt she should be very careful. The northeastern woman is above all the power that has in the soul of the sertanejo her greatest compassions that from her half-suffered image there is still any argument that justifies that her love is stronger for being a woman and that to be a woman it has to be a steel cover how to establish a compromise on certain pleasures that can dominate a man's heart by his two bright eyes that distinguish his value on his face and who does not love the female smile is unaware of Cervantes' poetry and that we can understand its value, beauty, work and love when we remain by her side so that we can understand her masculine and feminine side that would be or would be compromising between a hard reason to love a woman and be happy and that sin can walk silent or it would be a mystery of our emotions that we find in his heart and the truth that we do not want to lose as we could never forget him about his dominions that certainly would be between his love dose you, has erous and mind-boggling in which it makes us forget the hurts of life that are certainly unhinged by your side and companionship may be the derivative and cause of loving and the synonym would be loving because your love is more realistic than what we have to think about because being woman does not mean that we can reflect and decipher this issue that not all of them can be because it would be just to love and to be a woman this woman who lives in silence can be real and that this woman perhaps lacks us for her nobility and abilities that may someday shows that her hurt can only always unite us and that her love would not buy us luck and that we will always learn not to doubt this woman who is just a woman and we see the northeast transform our eyes into water and that her distance does not measure suffering of a people who will always be rich and who only left proof that their suffering welcomed us about a clairvoyance that we carry in our hearts because we are of Northeastern body and soul and only certain people who gave their lives for a bigger and better country in which today we are the best artists in the world and that the sertão can always show that their value has no limits as far as their extent is kept with us all their cunning , sufferings and history of a people who grew up and showed in their struggle that what makes a country may not be its beauty but the depth of its existence and its soul.

The Northeast Region is one of the five regions of Brazil defined by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) in 1969. It has an area equivalent to that of Mongolia or the state of Amazonas, a population equivalent to that of Italy and an average HDI, comparable to El Salvador (data from 2010). In comparison with other Brazilian regions, it has the second largest population, the third largest territory, the second largest electoral college (36 727 931 voters in 2010), the lowest HDI (2017) and the third largest GDP (2009).

It is the Brazilian region that has the largest number of states (nine in total): Alagoas, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Paraíba, Piauí, Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Nor te and Sergipe. Due to its different physical characteristics, the region is divided into four sub-regions: mid-north, backcountry, wilderness and forest area, with very varied levels of human development throughout its geographical areas.

The Northeast region was the cradle of European colonization in the country, since the discovery of Brazil took place there and the exploratory colonization was consolidated, which consisted, in short, in the extraction of brazilwood (or pau-de-pernambuco), whose ink wood was used to dye the clothes of the Old World nobility. With the creation of the hereditary captaincies in 1534, Vila de Olinda was founded, and years later construction began on the first capital of Brazil, Salvador, to house the general government. The Northeast was also the financial center of Brazil until the middle of the 18th century, since the Captaincy of Pernambuco was the main productive center of the colony and Recife the city of greatest economic importance.

History:

Archaeological research in Brazil came about through the curiosity and studies of European explorers, naturalists, travelers, botanists, geologists, and paleontologists. In this sense, the scientific records of these different areas are confused and complement each other. In general, the numerous archaeological information existing in the bibliography on the northeast, until the 1960s, were products of casual finds and / or hasty surface collections. Archaeological studies in the Northeast of Brazil began systematically in the 20th century, starting in the 1960s. Since then, study centers in this area have been established, which today have consolidated national and international recognition. From the advancement of research on the Northeastern archaeological theme together with the development of new dating technologies, such as Carbon 14, one can be aware of the period of the first occupations established in the region. Numerous sites in the Northeast are registered under the conventional name of Rock Art. Gabriela Martín and André Prous point to the oldest reference to a rock engraving, in Brazil, made by Feliciano Coelho de Carvalho, in Paraíba, in 1598. For Bahia, we find a document from the 18th century, in the Overseas Historical Archive, which makes mention of places with rock paintings, with human and animal figures, found during a trip through the state in search of saltpeter. The territory of the Northeast has a huge collection of paintings and prints made on a fixed stone support, either in shelters, in canyon-type walls or in rocky outcrops. The graphics have been located so far in almost all northeastern states. The systematic works of many archaeologists working in the Northeast, in this field of Archeology, allow today to recognize stylistic units that were called traditions. There are some localized variations, made on the thematic structure of traditions that archaeologists call subtraditions. The distribution of sites from these traditions varies from state to state, with some having a higher frequency of one or the other. On the other hand, we must consider that the possibilities of finding have not yet been exhausted and that some territories may have an unsuspected heritage.

European colonization

Colonization of Brazil

The Northeast was inhabited since prehistory by the indigenous peoples of Brazil, who, at the beginning of colonization, carried out trade with Europeans, in the form of extraction of brazilwood in exchange for other items. But, during the colonization period, they were either incorporated into the European domain or eliminated, due to the constant disputes against the planters.

The region was the stage of discovery during the 16th century. Portuguese arrived on an expedition on April 22, 1500, led by Pedro Álvares Cabral, in the current city of Porto Seguro, in the state of Bahia.

It was on the northeastern coast that the first economic activity in the country began, the extraction of brazilwood. Countries like France, which did not agree with the Treaty of Tordesillas, carried out constant attacks on the coast with the aim of smuggling wood to Europe.

The north coast of the current state of Maranhão was invaded by France, in the so-called Equinocial France. The French colonists founded a village called "Saint Louis" (now Saint Louis), in honor of the sovereign, Louis XIII of France. Aware of the French presence in the region, the Portuguese gathered troops from the Captaincy of Pernambuco, under the command of Alexandre de Moura. Military operations culminated in French capitulation in late 1615.

Dutch invasions

Dutch invasions

In 1630, the Captaincy of Pernambuco was invaded by the Dutch West Indies Company (West Indische Compagnie). On the occasion of the Iberian Union (1580 to 1640), the so-called Dutch Republic, formerly dominated by Spain, having subsequently achieved its independence Through force, they see in Pernambuco the opportunity to impose a severe blow on Spain, at the same time that they would take the loss of failure in Bahia, since Pernambuco was the main productive center of the colony. On December 26, 1629, a fleet of 66 boats and 7,280 men departed from São Vicente, Cape Verde, heading for Pernambuco. The Dutch, disembarking at Pau Amarelo beach, conquered the captaincy of Pernambuco in February 1630 and established the colony Nova Holanda. The fragile Portuguese resistance at the crossing of the Rio Doce, invaded, without major setbacks, Olinda and defeated the small, but stiff, garrison of the fort (which would later be called Brum), gateway to Recife through the isthmus that connected the two cities.

Recife, known as Mauritsstad (Mauritius City), was the capital of Dutch Brazil, having been governed most of the time by the German count (in the service of the Crown of the Netherlands) Maurício de Nassau. In this period, Recife was considered the most prosperous and urbanized city in the American continent. The Dutch empire in the Americas was composed at the time by a chain of fortresses that went from Ceará to the mouth of the São Francisco River, south of Alagoas. The Dutch also had a series of trading posts in Guinea and Angola, located on the other side of the Atlantic, which gave them control over sugar and the slave trade, managed by the West India Company.

Batalha dos Guararapes, decisive episodes in the Pernambuco insurrection, are considered the origin of the Brazilian Army.

The count landed in Nieuw Holland, New Holland, in 1637, accompanied by a team of architects and engineers. At this point, the construction of Mauritsstad begins, which was equipped with bridges, dikes and canals to overcome local geographic conditions. Architect Pieter Post was responsible for the layout of the new city and for buildings such as the Freeburg Palace, the seat of Nassau's power in New Holland, and the building of the astronomical observatory, which was considered the first in the New World. On February 28, 1644, Recife (now the Bairro do Recife) was linked to Mauritius with the construction of the first bridge in Latin America. Maurício de Nassau carried out a policy of religious tolerance towards Catholics and Calvinists. In addition, it allowed the migration of Jews to Recife, which now houses the largest Jewish community on the entire continent, and the creation of a synagogue, Kahal Zur Israel, opened in 1642 and considered the first Jewish temple in South America, Central and North.

For several reasons, one of the most important being the dismissal of Maurício de Nassau from the government of the captaincy by the Dutch Company of the West Indies, the people of Pernambuco rebelled against the government, joining the weak resistance that still exists, in a movement called Pernambucana Insurrection . With the gradual arrival of Portuguese reinforcements, the Dutch were finally expelled in 1654, in the second Battle of Guararapes. It was on this occasion that the Brazilian Army is said to have been born.

During the colonial period, in the 16th century, quilombola resistance began in Brazil, with the flight of slaves to Quilombo dos Palmares, in the Serra da Barriga region, current territory of Alagoas. More than twenty thousand people gathered in the various palmarine huts. In 1694, Macaco, the "capital" of Palmares, was taken and destroyed, Zumbi dos Palmares was captured and had his head beheaded and exposed in a public square in Recife.

The city of Salvador was the first headquarters of the government-general in Brazil, as it was strategically located in a midpoint on the coast. The government-general was an attempt to centralize power to assist the captaincies, which were going through a time of crisis. Sugar activity is still the main agricultural activity in the region.

Geography

NASA satellite image showing the Northeast Region of Brazil and parts of the North, Southeast and Midwest.

Geography of the Northeast Region of Brazil.

The area of northeastern Brazil is 1,554,291.744 km², equivalent to 18% of the national territory and is the region with the longest coastline. The region has the states with the largest and the smallest coastal coast, respectively Bahia, with 932 km of coastline and Piauí, with 60 km of coastline. The whole region has 3338 km of beaches.

It is located between the parallels of 07 ° 12 '35 "south latitude and 48 ° 20' 07" south latitude and between the meridians of 34 ° 47 '30 "and 48 ° 45' 24", west of the Greenwich meridian . It is limited to the north and east with the Atlantic Ocean, to the south with the states of Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo and to the west with the states of Pará, Tocantins and Goiás.

Relief

One of the characteristics of the northeastern relief is the existence of two old and extensive plateaus, the Borborema and the Parnaíba river basin and some high and flat areas that form the so-called chapadas, such as Diamantina, where the most important point is located evado of the region, the Pico do Barbado, with 2,033 meters of altitude, in Bahia, and the one of Araripe, in the borders between the States of Ceará, Piauí, Pernambuco and Paraíba. Among these regions there are some depressions, in which the sertão is located, a region with a semiarid climate.

According to Professor Jurandyr Ross, who with his team compiled information from the Radam Project (Radar da Amazônia) and showed a division of the Brazilian relief richer and subdivided into 28 units, in the Northeast are located the already mentioned Borborema plateau and plateaus and plateaus of the Parnaíba river basin, the Sertaneja-São Francisco depression and part of the plateaus and mountains of the east-southeast, in addition to the coastal plains and plateaus.

Climate

Triunfo, in the state of Pernambuco, has a mild temperature despite being located in the semiarid region. This is possible thanks to its altitude (1,004m), one of the highest in the northeastern hinterland.

The Northeast region of Brazil has an annual average temperature between 20 ° and 28 ° C. In areas above 200 meters and on the eastern coast, temperatures vary from 24 ° to 26 ° C. Annual averages below 20 ° C are found in the highest areas of Chapada Diamantina and the Borborema plateau. The annual precipitation index ranges from 300 to 2000 mm. Four types of climates are present in the Northeast:

• Humid equatorial climate: present in a small part of the state of Maranhão, on the border with Piauí;

• Humid coastal climate: present from the coast of Bahia to that of Rio Grande do Norte;

• Tropical climate: present in the states of Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão and Piauí;

• Semi-arid climate: present in the hinterland and part of the wild.

With an average rainfall of about 300 millimeters per year, which occurs for a maximum of three months, giving rise to droughts that sometimes last more than ten months, Cabaceiras, in Paraíba, has the title of the driest municipality in the country. The Northeast Region has 72.24% of its territory within the drought polygon, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Vegetation

Northeastern vegetation ranges from the Atlantic Forest on the coast to the Mata dos Cocais in the Middle North, with ecosystems such as mangroves, caatinga, cerrado, sandbanks, among others, which have exuberant fauna and flora, several endemic species and endangered animals extinction.

The caatinga, typical vegetation of the Northeastern Sertão.

• Atlantic Forest: also called the humid hillside rainforest, the Atlantic forest originally stretched from Ceará to Rio Grande do Sul, however, as a result of the deforestation that occurred mainly due to the sugar industry, today only about 5 remain % of original vegetation, dispersed on "islands". It was in the Northeastern Atlantic Forest that the process of extracting Brazilwood began; there are also semi-deciduous and humid forests in the states of Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba and Bahia, which are part of the Atlantic Forest in a non-continuous way as on the coast, occurring only in mountain ranges and plateaus in the interior of these territories and characterizing the so-called swamp of altitude.

• Mata dos cocais: vegetation formation in transition between semiarid, equatorial and tropical climates. The main species are babassu and carnauba, in addition to buriti. It occurs in part of Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte and Tocantins in the North region. It represents less than 3% of the area of Brazil.

• Cerrado: occupies 25% of the Brazilian territory, but in the Northeast only covers the south of the state of Maranhão, the southwest of Piauí, the west of Bahia, interior areas of the South and Center-South regions of Ceará (in these, isolated by the caatinga) , Microregion of Araripina in Pernambuco and some areas of the coastal strip that runs from Piauí to Sergipe. It presents small trees, with twisted branches, with the ground covered by grasses and soils of high acidity; in Cariri Ceará there is also the formation of the cerradão, a cerrado with taller trees.

• Caatinga: typical vegetation of the sertão, whose main species are pereiro, aroeira, legumes and cactaceae. It is a formation of xerophytic vegetables (vegetables from dry regions), but it is ecologically rich. It occurs in all northeastern states except Maranhão, and in the north of Minas Gerais, in the Southeast Region.

• Coastal vegetation and riparian forest: in the category of coastal vegetation, mangroves can be included, a rich local ecosystem for housing and breeding crabs and important for the preservation of rivers and lagoons. You can also include sandbanks and dunes. Riparian forests or gallery forests are common in cerrado regions, but can also be seen in the Zona da Mata. They are small forests that follow the banks of rivers, where there is a greater concentration of organic materials in the soil, and work as a protection for rivers and seas.

Hydrography

Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, in the state of Maranhão.

The hydrographic basins of the Northeast are:

• São Francisco Basin:

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it is the main in the region, formed by the São Francisco rivers and its tributaries. Fishing, navigation and electricity production activities are carried out by the Três Marias, Sobradinho, Paulo Afonso, Luiz Gonzaga and Xingó hydroelectric plants. The basin delimits the natural borders of Bahia with Pernambuco and also of Sergipe and Alagoas, which is where its mouth is located.

• Parnaíba Basin: it is the second most important, occupying an area of about 344,112 km² (3.9% of the national territory) and drains almost the entire state of Piauí, part of Maranhão and Ceará. The Parnaíba River is one of the few in the world to have an open sea delta, with a mangrove area of approximately 2,700 km².

• Eastern Northeast Atlantic Basin: occupies an area of 287,384 km², covering six states: Piauí, Ceará, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Paraíba and Rio Grande do Norte. The main rivers are Jaguaribe, Piranhas-Açú, Apodi, Acaraú, Curimataú, Mundaú, Paraíba, Capibaribe, Ipojuca and Una, (the latter three in the state of Pernambuco).

• Western Northeast Atlantic Basin: located between the Northeast and the North, it is located, almost entirely, in the state of Maranhão. Some of its sub-basins constitute rich ecosystems, such as mangroves, babassu and floodplains. The main rivers are Gurupi, Turiaçu, Mearim, and Itapecuru.

• East Atlantic Basin: comprising an area of 364,677 km², divided between 2 states in the Northeast (Bahia and Sergipe) and two in the Southeast (Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo). In the basin, fishing is used as a subsistence activity.

Geographical areas

Northeast sub-regions: 1 Mid-North, 2 Sertão, 3 Agreste and 4 Zona da Mata.

Due to its different physical characteristics, the Northeast region is divided into four zones or sub-regions:

• Mid-North: It is a transition strip between the Amazon and the Northeastern Sertão. It encompasses the state of Maranhão and the western state of Piauí. This geographical area is also known as Mata dos Cocais. On the coast, it rains about 2,000 mm annually. Going further east or inland, that number drops to 1,500 mm annually, and in southern Piauí, a region more similar to the Sertão, it rains an average of 700 mm a year.

• Sertão: It is located, almost entirely, in the interior of the Northeast Region, being its largest geographical area. It has a semi-arid climate. In states like Ceará and Rio Grande do Norte it reaches the coast, and, going further south, it reaches the border between Bahia and Minas Gerais. The rains in this sub-region are irregular and scarce, with constant periods of drought. The typical vegetation is the caatinga.

• Agreste: It is a transition strip between Sertão and Zona da Mata. It is the smallest geographical area in the Northeast Region. It is located at the top of the Borborema Plateau, a natural obstacle for the arrival of rains in the hinterland. It extends from Rio Grande do Norte to the south of Bahia. On the east side of the plateau are the most humid lands (Zona da Mata); on the other side, inland, the climate is getting drier and drier (Sertão).

• Zona da Mata: Located in the east, between the Planalto da Borborema and the coast, it extends from Rio Grande do Norte to the south of Bahia. The rains are abundant in this region. It received this name because it was covered by the Atlantic Forest. The cultivation of sugar cane and cocoa replaced the forest areas. It is the most developed area in the Northeast Region.

Demography

Nighttime satellite image highlights the urban concentration, recognized by the emitted lights, in the Zona da Mata.

List of the 100 most populous municipalities in the Northeast region of Brazil

According to IBGE data, the region has more than 49 million inhabitants, almost 30% of the Brazilian population. It is the second most populous region in the country, behind only the Southeast region. It is also the third region in terms of population density, with 32 inhabitants per square kilometer. The largest northeastern cities, in terms of population, are: Salvador, Fortaleza, Recife, São Luís, Natal, Teresina, Maceió, João Pessoa, Feira de Santana, Jaboatão dos Guararapes, Aracaju, Olinda, Campina Grande, Caucaia, Paulista, Vitória da Conquista, Caruaru, Petrolina, Mossoró, Parnamirim, Juazeiro do Norte, Itabuna and Juazeiro, all with more than two hundred thousand inhabitants.

Urbanization

As in the whole of Brazil, the Northeastern population is poorly distributed. About 60.6% of it is concentrated in the coastal strip and in the main capitals. In the sertão and interior, the population density levels are lower, mainly because of the semi-arid climate. Even so, the demographic density in the northeastern semiarid is one of the highest in the world for this type of climatic area.

According to IBGE data (2004), 71.5% of the Northeasterners are in urban areas. Urbanization in the Northeast was slower than in the rest of the country, but has accelerated in recent decades. In the 1991-1996 period, the rural population in the total population fell by 45.8%.

Metropolitan areas

The Metropol Region Itana do Recife, in the state of Pernambuco, is the largest urban agglomeration in the Northeast.

The Metropolitan Region of Patos, in the state of Paraíba, is the metropolitan region that has more municipalities in the Northeast. There are 24 municipalities in total.

The region of Petrolina and Juazeiro and that of Cariri added to Sousa configure a dynamic triangular urban network in the central semiarid region of Brazil, located in the regional capitals Petrolina (PE) / Juazeiro (BA) and Juazeiro do Norte (CE) and in the sub-center. Sousa (PB).

All capitals in the Northeast region have a metropolitan region (RM), with the exception of Teresina, which has an integrated economic development region (RIDE), as it houses municipalities from different federal units. In addition to the capitals, other metropolitan areas are inland. The oldest metropolitan regions are Recife, Salvador and Fortaleza, which were created by the Federal Complementary Law of Brazil 14 of 1973, and are also the most populous. The others were created through complementary state laws, such as the Feira de Santana Metropolitan Region.

All nine northeastern states have at least one metropolitan area in their territory, either in its entirety (such as Rio Grande do Norte and Sergipe) or partially (Piauí). In this sense, Maranhão has three in total. There are two (São Luís and Sudoeste Maranhense), located entirely within the Maranhão territory, and another (Greater Teresina) expands through Piauí. The state of Paraíba has the largest number of metropolitan regions (twelve in total).

IBGE 2010 census data confirm the Metropolitan Region of Recife as the most populous in Northeast Brazil, the fifth in Brazil and the 107th in the world. The Metropolitan Region of Salvador fell one place in the regional and national classification, being overtaken by the Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza; this now occupies the second position in the Northeast, the sixth in Brazil and the 108th in the world. Ethnic composition

Indigenous peoples in Northeast Brazil

For the formation of the northeastern people, three ethnic groups participated: the indigenous, the white and the black.

The ethnic and cultural miscegenation of these three elements was the pillar for the composition of the population of the Northeast, however, this mixture of races did not happen uniformly. In some regions, such as Ceará, Piauí, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte and the west and central region of Pernambuco, caboclos predominate. In others, like Bahia, and eastern Pernambuco, mulattos predominate. Cafuzos are also very common in Maranhão.

The states with the largest white population are Pernambuco (36.6%), Paraíba (36.4%) and Rio Grande do Norte (36.3%); those with the largest black population, Bahia (16.8%), Maranhão (6.6%) and Piauí (5.9%); those with the largest indigenous population, Maranhão (0.9%), Bahia (0.3%) and Paraíba (0.3%); and those with the largest brown population, Piauí (69.9%), Maranhão (68.6%) and Alagoas (67.7%).

Genetic studies

Salvador, Bahia, is the city with the largest number of Afro-descendants in Brazil; however, the municipality with the highest percentage of black individuals in the country is Riacho Frio-PI (61.71%). Bahia (16.8%), Maranhão (6.6%) and Piauí (5.9%) are the northeastern states with the highest percentage of blacks.

According to the 2011 autosomal study carried out by the Brazilian geneticist Sérgio Pena, the European component is predominant in the population of the Northeast, with African and indigenous contributions. According to the study, the composition of the Northeast can be described as follows: 60.10% European heritage, 29.30% African heritage and 8.90% indigenous. This study was conducted based on blood donors, and most blood donors in Brazil come from the lower classes (in addition to nurses and other people who work in public health entities, thus representing the Brazilian population well ). This study found that Brazilians from different regions are genetically much more homogeneous than expected, as a consequence of the European predominance (which had already been shown by several other autosomal genetic studies, as shown below). “Due to the color and race criteria used today in the census, we had the vision of Brazil as a heterogeneous mosaic, as if the South and the North were home to two different peoples”, comments the geneticist. "The study shows that Brazil is a much more integrated country than we thought." The Brazilian homogeneity is, therefore, much greater among the regions than within them, which values individual heterogeneity. This conclusion of the work indicates that characteristics such as skin color are, in fact, arbitrary to categorize the population. According to a 2009 autosomal genetic study, European heritage is dominant in the Northeast, accounting for 66.70% of the population, the rest being African (23.30%) and Amerindian (10%). According to an autosomal genetic study done in 2010 by the Catholic University of Brasilia, published in the American Journal of Human Biology, genetic inheritance European ethics is predominant in Brazil, accounting for around 80% of the total, and in the South this percentage rises to 90%. The results also showed that, in Brazil, indicators of physical appearance, such as skin color, eyes and of hair, have relatively little to do with each person's ancestry (that is, a person's phenotype does not clearly indicate their genotype). According to this study, the European contribution accounts for 77.40% of the ancestry of the Northeasterners, the African, 13.60% and the indigenous, 8.90%. This study was conducted based on samples of free paternity tests, as explained by the researchers: "the paternity tests were free, the population samples involve people of variable socioeconomic profile, although probably with a bias towards the group of 'pardos' '".

Baía da Traição, in the state of Paraíba, is home to the largest indigenous population in northeastern Brazil. It is traditional territory of the Potiguara Indians.

According to a genetic study carried out in 1965, by the North American researchers DF Roberts and RW Hiorns, "Methods of Analysis of a Hybrid Population" (in Human Biology, vol. 37, number 1), the ancestral Average Age of the Northeast is predominantly European (degree around 65%), with smaller but important contributions from Africa and Brazilian Indians (25% and 9% respectively). According to an older autosomal DNA study (from 2003), inheritance in the Northeast can be characterized as follows: 75% European ancestry, 15% African and 10% indigenous. The researchers were cautious about completing the study, as it was based on samples from people who took the paternity test, which may have contributed, in part, to altering the results in some way. Recent genetic research carried out by a Brazilian laboratory has shown that around 1/5 of Northeasterners (19%) have a type 2 paternal haplogroup from Europe, a higher percentage than the present (13%) in the Portuguese population. This "excess" in the frequency of haplogroup 2 could be due to the genetic influence of miscegenation with Dutch colonizers, who were in the Northeast between 1630 and 1654. At the time of the Dutch invasion, although miscegenation was not officially stimulated, there are reports of many unions interracial. The absence of Dutch women stimulated the union and even the marriage of Dutch officers and colonists with daughters of wealthy Portuguese-Brazilian planters and, more informally, of these with indigenous women, black women, caboclas and local mulatto women. These colonizers were divided into two groups: the Dienaaren ("servants", mainly soldiers in the service of the Dutch Crown) and the Vrijburghers ("free men", the colonists who came to exercise the function of merchants). Genetic analysis can reveal European ancestry in black and mulatto people. The singer Djavan, from Alagoas, as well as the father of actress Ildi Silva, from Bahia, for example, discovered that they have European ancestry in the paternal lineage, which they attribute to hypothetical Dutch ancestors.

White gold:

Location of Ouro Branco-RN, the northeastern city with the highest percentage of whites (86.07%).

In the interior of Pernambuco, especially in the Sertão do Araripe and in Agreste communities, there are many people with very light skin, blond hair and light eyes. Tradition states that they are descendants of Dutch people who hid during the Pernambucan Insurrection, which made possible a unique ethnic configuration in the state. An exemplary group of this phenomenon are the Gangarras do Bandeira, population of skin, hair and light eyes in the municipality of Brejo da Madre God's.

Genetic studies carried out on inhabitants of northeastern capitals have confirmed the mestizo origin of this population, formed by the miscegenation of Europeans, Africans and Indians. The contribution of each ethnic group varies from capital to capital, with the European one being the most prevalent. For example, for the population of Natal, the ancestry found was 58% European, 25% African and 17% indigenous. For the population of Aracaju, 62% European, 34% African and 4% indigenous. In the case of São Luís, the ancestry found was 42% European, 39% Amerindian and 19% African. In Salvador, the predominant ancestry is African (49.2%), followed by European (36.3%) and indigenous (14.5%). The study also concluded that Salvadorans who have a surname with a religious connotation tend to have a higher degree of African ancestry (54.9%) and belong to less favored social classes. The ancestry of northeastern migrants who live in São Paulo would be 59% European, 30% African and 11% indigenous, according to a very old 1965 study, based on blood polymorphisms. According to another study, from 1997, for the entire Northeastern population, the estimated ancestry would be 51% European, 36% African and 13% indigenous. According to a 2011 genetic study, browns and whites from Fortaleza, which make up the majority of the population, had European ancestry (around 70%) with the remainder basically divided into important African and indigenous contributions. According to a 2015 genetic study, the population of Fortaleza has the following genetic composition: 48.9% European contribution, 35.4% indigenous contribution and 15.7% African contribution. According to a genetic study from 2013, the genetic composition of the population of Pernambuco is 56.8% European, 27.9% African and 15.3% Amerindian. In the same year, another study carried out in Alagoas concluded that the genetic composition of 54.7% of the state's population is European, 26.6% African and 18.7% Amerindian.

Brachycephalic individuals are common in part of the northeastern hinterland, especially in the area that today comprises the state of Ceará. This peculiar characteristic was inherited from their ancestors: the Cariris Indians. Much of the brown population of Ceará, which corresponds to 66.1% of the total population of the state, shares this characteristic. Some peoples in other countries have the same type of skull.

Migration flows

Map of migration in Brazil between the 1960s and 1980s.

Due to the huge income inequality, the great land concentration and the problem of drought in the Northeastern Sertão, the Northeast has been since the empire of D. Pedro II and especially in the second half of the 20th century a region of strong population repulsion. Due to the offer of jobs in other regions of Brazil, mainly in the 60s, 70s and 80s, northeastern migration has been highlighted in the Brazilian population dynamics, especially in the North and Southeast regions of Brazil.

In the 1990s, however, due to economic crises and the saturation of markets in several large cities, the supply of jobs decreased, the quality of education worsened and income remained poorly distributed, causing most of the Northeasterners who had migrated, fleeing from misery, and their descendants continued with a precarious life structure. Because of the vision propagated in previous decades, the supposed imaginary ideal that was formed in relation to the Southeast region and the promise of a better quality of life, easy job opportunities, higher wages, among others; deluded by this dream, when a Northeasterner migrates to the Southeast in search of an improvement in the quality of life, he usually ends up finding the opposite, in addition to suffering, often, social prejudice in daily life. In recent years, the traditional movement of emigration has reduced or even been inverted in the Northeast region. According to the study "New geoeconomics of employment in Brazil", from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), the states of Ceará, Paraíba, Sergipe and Rio Grande do Norte received more migrants between 1999 and 2004 than they sent to other regions. The state of Paraíba, according to the same survey, was the most radical example of the transformation that migratory patterns in the region have undergone: it inverted the migratory pattern of the negative balance of 61 thousand people to the positive balance of 45 thousand. In all other states that continue to have a negative migratory balance, the number of migrants decreased in the same period analyzed: in Maranhão, it decreased from 173 thousand to 77 thousand; in Pernambuco, from 115 thousand to 24 thousand; and in Bahia, from 267 thousand to 84 thousand.

Social problems

Drought polygon, Northeastern migration and Northeast Development Superintendence

In the northeastern hinterland there are still victims of droughts, which are constant. The states with the highest concentration of extreme poverty are Maranhão, Alagoas and Piauí.

The northeastern region of Brazil has historical problems: backward and poorly diversified agriculture, large landowners, concentration of income and a poorly diversified and low productivity industry; in addition to the natural phenomenon of constant droughts (see: Drought polygon). The distinct characteristics between the northeast and other regions of the country, in addition to accentuating regional inequalities, formed a favorable scenario for northeastern migration, especially in urban areas. However, despite showing great improvement in the last few years in terms of the quality of life of its population, it still has the lowest socio-economic indicators in the country, such as the Human Development Index (HDI). Low indicators are more severe in rural areas and in the northeastern hinterland, which suffers long periods without rain; however, their indicators are better than those of countries like South Africa (the largest economy on the African continent), Bolivia and Guyana. 18.7% of Northeasterners were illiterate in 2009 according to information released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE); and, according to Ibope, 22% benefited from the Bolsa Família income transfer program in 2010. The fertility rate in the Northeast was 2.04 children per woman in 2009, above the national average (1.94 children per woman) and rates in the Southeast (1.75 children per woman), S ul (1.92 children per woman) and Midwest (1.93 children per woman), and below the rate in the North Region (2.51 children per woman). It should be noted that the northeastern birth rate is below the population replacement rate, which is 2.1 children per woman - two children replace their parents and the 0.1 fraction is necessary to compensate individuals who die before reaching birth. reproductive age - and is similar to rates in some developed countries, such as the United States and Iceland (both with a rate of 2.05 children per woman).

economy

Pernambuco's GDP grew 15.78% in 2010, more than double the national average of the same year, which was 7.5%. The Suape Industrial Complex, responsible for this growth, is home to developments such as the Atlântico Sul Shipyard. The oil tanker João Cândido (pictured) was the first ship launched by the Pernambuco naval industry.

The economy of the Northeast Region of Brazil was the historical basis for the beginning of Brazil's economy, since activities around Brazilwood and sugar cane predominated and started in Northeast Brazil. The Northeast was the richest region in the country until the middle of the 18th century.

The Northeast Region is currently the third largest economy in Brazil among the major regions. Its share in the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product was 13.4% in 2011, after the South Region (16.2% share in GDP) and ahead of the Midwest Region (9.6% share in GDP). Still, it is the region with the lowest GDP per capita. The income distribution in this region improved significantly in the 2000s: according to data from the National Household Sample Survey (Pnad) 2009, the average income in the Northeast suffered a real increase (already discounting inflation) of 28.8% between 2004 and 2009, from R $ 570 to R $ 734. Between 2008 and 2009, the increase was 2.7%. It was the region that presented the biggest increase in the average wage of the worker in this period.

In 2011 its nominal GDP was R $ 555.3 billion, surpassing that of countries like Chile, Singapore and Portugal; and its nominal GDP per capita, of R $ 10,379.55, surpassing that of countries like Ukraine, Thailand and China. The largest economies in the Northeast Region are, respectively, Bahia, Pernambuco and Ceará, states that together account for 8.5% of national GDP. The northeastern states with the highest GDP per capita are Sergipe, Pernambuco, Bahia and Rio Grande do Norte, followed by Ceará, Paraíba, Alagoas, Maranhão and Piaui. In 2011, Ipojuca, in Pernambuco, was the municipality with the highest GDP per capita in the Northeast Region, with R $ 116,198.31, in addition to the sixteenth in Brazil. Other northeastern municipalities were also among the 100 with the highest GDP per capita in the country, such as Guamaré-RN, São Francisco do Conde-BA, Cairu-BA and Candeias-BA. In contrast, the city with the third lowest GDP per capita in Brazil is also located in the Northeast: São Vicente Ferrer, in Maranhão, with R $ 2,679.66. The 56 municipalities with the lowest GDP per capita (which correspond to 1.0% of the 5,570 municipalities in the country) had GDP per capita of less than R $ 3,492.99 and were located in six states: Maranhão (19), Alagoas (7), Piauí (7), Bahia (6) and Ceará (1), in the Northeast Region; and Pará (16), in the North Region. Among the northeastern states, only Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco and Sergipe do not have a municipality with GDP per capita below R $ 4,000.00. The Camaçari Petrochemical Complex, in the state of Bahia, is the largest integrated industrial complex in the Southern Hemisphere.

The installed energy capacity is 10,761 MW.

The Northeast Region has enjoyed strong economic growth since the late 2000s. Even during the 2008-2009 world economic crisis, the Region showed an increase in GDP: while Brazil's GDP decreased 0.2% in 2009, Pernambuco's GDP grew 4%; Ceará's GDP, 3.4%; and Bahia's GDP, 2.2%. This growth softened the impact of the biggest crisis of capitalism in the last 80 years on the Brazilian economy.

Banco do Nordeste increased the growth projection for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Northeast to 8.3% in 2010. The forecast is that the increase will be higher than in Brazil, whose evolution should be 7.5% in 2010.

Tourism

Genipabu, in the Metropolitan Region of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, is internationally famous for its dunes, for buggy and Arabian camel rides and for its good hotel infrastructure.

The coast is the main attraction of the region. Millions of tourists disembark at northeastern airports. For some years, states have been investing intensively in improving infrastructure, creating new tourist hubs, and some in developing ecotourism.

According to the survey "Habits of Consumption of Brazilian Tourism 2009", carried out by Vox Populi in November 2009, Bahia is the preferred tourist destination of Brazilians, [69] since 21.4% of tourists opted for the state. Pernambuco, with 11.9%, and São Paulo, with 10.9%, are in second and third places, respectively, in the surveyed categories.

Among the beaches s sought after in the Northeast are: Arraial d'Ajuda and Morro de São Paulo, in Bahia; Atalaia and Pirambu, in Sergipe; Pajuçara and Maragogi, in Alagoas; Porto de Galinhas and Itamaracá, in Pernambuco; Cabedelo and Tambaba, in Paraíba; Genipabu and Pipa, in Rio Grande do Norte; Jericoacoara and Canoa Quebrada, in Ceará; Coqueiro and Pedra do Sal, in Piauí; and Curupu and Atins, in Maranhão.

The Fernando de Noronha archipelago is gaining national and global prominence. By the islands it is possible to see the jumping dolphins. Also noteworthy is the Chapada Diamantina in Bahia, which enchants its visitors and surprises with the number of caves, caves, waterfalls and trails it has, making it an excellent place to visit at any time of the year.

Another prominent place is the Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, a complex of dunes, rivers, lagoons and mangroves. In Bahia, there are the Costa do Sauípe, the largest tourist complex in Brazil, and the Abrolhos Archipelago, which has an excellent area for scuba diving and free diving in addition to attractions such as the humpback whale season, which begins in July. In Piauí, there are the national parks Sete Cidades, Serra das Confusões and Serra da Capivara with rock formation and rock paintings; in addition to its coastline having the Parnaíba Delta. Other highlights are the largest cashew tree in the world and the Forte dos Reis Magos, both in Rio Grande do Norte.

In the latest TAM VIAGENS surveys, Natal is the most sought after national destination by Brazilians. And when the ranking also considers international destinations, Natal ranks second only to Florida. At the end of 2015, Natal was elected by the magazine NATIONAL GEOGRAFIA TRAVELER as one of the 20 world destinations to visit in 2016. This was the only place in Brazil pointed out by the magazine.

Fernando de Noronha, in Pernambuco, is one of the largest tourist hubs in the country.

Ecotourism is still little explored in the Northeast, but it has great potential. Even so, among the ten main Brazilian ecotourism destinations, there are four landscapes located in the Northeast region of Brazil, where you can choose between islands (Archipelago of Fernando de Noronha in Pernambuco), dunes (Lençóis Maranhenses in Maranhão), high-altitude Atlantic forest (Chapada Diamantina in Bahia) and archeology in the caatinga (Serra da Capivara National Park in Piauí).

The culture of the region is also an attraction for tourists. All states have different holidays and traditions. Olinda, in Pernambuco, with traces of Dutch Brazil; São Luís, in Maranhão, with those from Equinocial France; São Cristóvão, in Sergipe, and its Praça de São Francisco, surrounded by imposing historic buildings; Salvador, in Bahia, with those of the political and administrative headquarters of Colonial Brazil; and Porto Seguro and Santa Cruz de Cabrália, also in Bahia, with the historical marks of the arrival of the squadrons of the discovery of Brazil; they are some of the main historical and cultural attractions of the region, the first four being considered cultural heritage by humanity by UNESCO.

Religious tourism has been growing in the region, especially the municipalities of Juazeiro do Norte and Canindé, both in Ceará; and Bom Jesus da Lapa in Bahia. Also worth mentioning is the municipality of Santa Cruz in Rio Grande do Norte, with the statue of Alto de Santa Rita de Cássia, which is the largest statue in America. Another city that has stood out is São José de Ribamar, in Maranhão, which in September brings together a large number of faithful from the northeastern states and the state of Pará. There is even a large statue of São José, which can be accessed by visitors, which has a sea view.

Infrastructure

Science and technology

Porto Digital, located in the old Recife district in the capital of Pernambuco, is the largest technological park in Brazil and a world reference in the production of software.

The field of science and technology in the Northeast of Brazil is in full growth and expansion, since the end of the 1990s and continued in the 2000s. Northeastern cities are receiving national and international recognition for their centers, centers and technological institutes. One example is Recife, which houses Porto Digital, a software development hub created in July 2000. A world reference, the Pernambuco hub is recognized as the largest technological park in Brazil in terms of revenue and number of companies.

In the interior of Paraíba, Campina Grande gains relevance as one of the nine cities of prominence in the world that present a new model of technological center, the only one mentioned in all of Latin America in the April 2001 edition of the American magazine Newsweek. And in another study, it appears alongside the city of São Paulo, the only Latin American ones, in the area of world technological innovation. All this technological highlight of Campina Grande is the result of the formation of a solid academic base, which started in the 1960s, when the current Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG), then Escola Politécnica, acquired one of the first five computers in universities in the country (first in the North-Northeast), giving rise to current undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of electrical engineering and computing. Another notorious initiative is the International Neuroscience Institute of Natal, opened in 2006 in the capital of Rio Grande do Sul and designed by neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis (considered one of the 20 most important neuroscientists in the world). It was created to decentralize national research, currently restricted to the Southeast and South regions of Brazil.

Ratifying the process of decentralization of science and technology research, in Salvador, on July 17, 2009, after a year of construction and an investment of 30 million reais, the first biotechnology center located in the North and Northeast: the Center for Biotechnology and Cell Therapy at Hospital São Rafael (CBTC), the most modern and advanced center for stem cell studies in Latin America. In addition, in 2010 the so-called "Campus of the Brain" was opened in Macaíba in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, which is a center for research and development in neuroscience and which has a social inclusion project, as well as the scientific part. Other projects are Cidade da Ciência and Metrópole Digital, also in Rio Grande do Norte.

Transportation

Overpass complex on Avenida do Contorno in Feira de Santana, stretch of division between BRs 116 and 324.

The region's road network has 394,700 km of highways. The main routes of flow and road transport are BR-116 and BR-101, with the city of Feira de Santana, Bahia as the largest road junction in the region.

Its railway system is still precarious, however works are underway such as the Transnordestina Railway, which will connect the Port of Suape, in the Metropolitan Region of Recife, to the Port of Pecém, in the Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza, crossing practically the entire territory of Pernambuco and Ceará and linking these two states to the state of Piauí, and will allow the outflow of agricultural production from the southwest of Piauí and the São Francisco Valley and the production of the plaster hub of Araripina at a lower cost, which will make prices more competitive; and the Oeste-Leste Railway, which will connect the city of Figueirópolis in Tocantins to Porto Sul in Ilhéus in Bahia and will allow the flow of soybeans from the states of Mato Grosso, Goiás and Tocantins and western Bahia as well as iron ore, uranium, cocoa and cellulose from southern Bahia.

Recife International Airport is the largest and most modern airport in the North-Northeast and one of the five best in Brazil.

Its most important cities have an adequate airport structure, the international airports of Natal / São Gonçalo do Amarante, Recife, Salvador and Fortaleza being the largest. The main airports in the Northeast receive millions of tourists annually and maintain regular flights to the main cities in Europe and the United States, with Recife International Airport being the busiest airport terminal in the region. In São Gonçalo do Amarante, in Grande Natal, there is the Governador Aluízio Alves International Airport, which is the most modern, has the largest runway capacity in the Northeast, as well as being the only one hundred percent privatized and the only one with a runway prepared for aircraft. as large as the A380 (3000x60). Currently, only Recife, Salvador and Fortaleza have a metro system. There are also VLT projects under study to be implemented in the region. The Maceió, Natal, João Pessoa and Teresina tramways are already in operation. Other projects outside the state capitals are the Cariri VLT in Juazeiro do Norte and the Arapiraca, as well as the interconnection between the center and Natal Airport.

Education

The Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Pernambuco obtained 81.3% in the Order Exam in 2010.1. The college, which was born from the transfer of the Law Faculty of Olinda, is the oldest law school in Brazil.

Northeast Brazil has a long history in the area of education, since the first Jesuits, who already installed schools in this region in the 16th century. The main educational facilities are concentrated in capitals and medium-sized cities.

Three universities in the Northeast Region are among the thousand best in the world in 2014, according to a study by the CWUR (Center for World University Rankings): the Federal University of Pernambuco (15th national place and 940th position in the global ranking); the Federal University of Ceará (16th national place and 964th position in the global ranking); and the Federal University of Bahia (17th national and 967th position in the global ranking).

The Feira de Santana State University (UEFS) obtained the best use of the North-Northeast and the 15th in Brazil in the National Student Performance Exam (Enade) in 2012.

According to ENADE indicators, the State University of Feira de Santana (UEFS) and the Federal University l from Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) are among the top 20 in the country in 2012, in 15th and 18th positions, respectively. The Scimago Institutions Ranking (SRI) 2012 shows the State University of Feira de Santana in the 18th position in the Ibero-American ranking among the 1,401 higher education institutions, and in the 118th position in the ranking of universities in Latin America and the Caribbean in the scientific production index .

The Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Pernambuco, located in Recife obtained the second best performance in the Examination of Order in 2010.1, with a rate of 81.3%, surpassed by the Law course of the University of Brasília. At the Faculty of Law of Recife, important names in Brazilian history studied, notably names such as Ruy Barbosa, Barão do Rio Branco, Castro Alves, Clóvis Beviláqua, Tobias Barreto, Joaquim Nabuco, Eusébio de Queirós, Teixeira de Freitas, Marquês de Paranaguá , Epitácio Pessoa, Assis Chateaubriand, José Lins do Rego and Pontes de Miranda. Another three law schools in the Northeast are among the ten best in the country. They are, by order of approved students: Federal University of Paraíba (75.2%); Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (72.3%); and Federal University of Ceará (69.4%).

The Faculty of Medicine of Bahia, the oldest medical school in Brazil, was founded in 1808 by the Pernambuco doctor Correia Picanço under the name of Escola de Cirurgia da Bahia, shortly after the arrival of Dom João VI in the country.

The state of Pernambuco stands out in technological education. The Computer Center of the Federal University of Pernambuco (CIn UFPE), responsible for the courses in Computer Science, Information Systems and Computer Engineering, is a major supplier of specialized labor in technology to Microsoft. Its courses are considered to be among the best in Latin America. UFPE was one of five educational institutions selected worldwide for Microsoft's worldwide research program, which allowed its access to the source code of Visual Studio components. The other four selected universities were Yale University (United States); Monash University (Australia); the University of Hull (England); besides UNESP, Brazil being the only country that had two chosen universities. UFPE was honored by Microsoft for the participation of students from the institution's Computer Center in Imagine Cup, an event promoted by the company. Students of the Mechanical Engineering course at the Federal University of Pernambuco participated, in 2011, in the Baja SAE BRASIL-PETROBRAS Competition and guaranteed a place for Baja SAE Kansas, in the United States. Only UFPE and two São Paulo universities, USP and FEI, won the right to represent Brazil in the international edition of the competition.

Univasf is the first Federal University implanted in the northeastern hinterland. It is located in the states of Pernambuco, Bahia and Piauí, with headquarters in the city of Petrolina. He started his academic activities in 2004.

Ceará is the state with the highest approval rate at ITA, considered the most difficult entrance exam in the country. Every year about 30% of the freshmen at this higher education institution are from this northeastern state. The exemplary performance in exact sciences achieved by Ceará is due to the work carried out in a group of schools in the state capital, Fortaleza. Another highlight of the Northeast Region at ITA is the state of Pernambuco, which had 12 students approved in the Vestibular 2011, which represents almost 10% of the 130 places offered by this institution. Pernambuco was ranked 3rd in approvals, surpassed only by the states of Ceará and São Paulo. ITA, an institution founded by Casimiro Montenegro Filho in the state of São Paulo, was the embryo of Embraer, and provides labor for this, which is the third largest aircraft manufacturer in the world. The Northeast Region was the second region in Brazil in number of schools among the 20 best in ENEM 2009, alongside the Central-West Region: there were 4 schools in each of these two regions. The Southeast Region led the ranking, with twelve schools. South and North regions were not included in the list. The highlight in the Northeast Region was the city of Teresina, in the state of Piauí, with three of the twenty best schools in the country: the Instituto Dom Barreto (2nd place); the Antoine Lavoisier Teaching Institute (12th place); and Educandário Santa Maria Goretti (19th place). The fourth Northeastern school that entered the list of the twenty best educational institutions in Brazil was Colégio Helyos, from Feira de Santana, Bahia, which ranked 9th. Among the public institutions, the best placed in the Northeast Region was the CE Application College of UFPE, located in Recife-PE, which obtained the 6th place among the public schools in the country and the 40th place in the general classification.

The Northeast Region, historically recognized for having the largest number of illiterates in the country, achieved remarkable advances in its educational indicators during the 200s 0: its illiteracy rate fell from 22.4% in 2004 to 18.7% in 2009, according to information released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Cheers

The Januário Cicco Maternity School, a work of neoclassical architecture belonging to UFRN, is the most important maternity hospital in Rio Grande do Norte.

The main medical centers in the Northeast are the cities of Recife, Salvador and Fortaleza.

Among the main hospitals in Recife is the Hospital da Restauração, the largest public emergency and the most complex emergency and trauma service in the North-Northeast, receiving patients from all over the state and neighboring states. The Hospital da Restauração, a reference in the areas of trauma, neurosurgery, neurology, general surgery, medical clinic and orthopedics, has 482 beds registered with the Ministry of Health (MS), but, including extras, it works with a total of 723 beds to serve your demand. Recife's private hospitals make the capital of Pernambuco the second largest medical and hospital center in Brazil. In Salvador, Bahia, stand out the General Hospital Roberto Santos (HGRS) - the largest in the state - and the General Hospital of the State (HGE). HGRS provides an average of one thousand outpatient visits and 350 emergency visits on working days; it is a reference in oral and maxillofacial and vascular surgeries and a medical clinic in neurosurgery and nephrology; and has almost 2,600 employees. Roberto Santos' building also houses the Antivenom Information Center, a reference in the treatment of poisoning in Bahia. Other hospitals worth mentioning: Hospital Santo Antônio (founded by Irmã Dulce); the Sarah Kubitschek Hospital; and the Professor Edgard Santos University Hospital Complex.

The main public hospitals in the state of Ceará are concentrated in Fortaleza. Among these hospitals, the Doctor José Frota Institute, better known as IJF, which is the largest emergency hospital in the state, administered by the city hall, deserves special mention; and the Fortaleza General Hospital, which is the largest public hospital, administered by the state government. Private medical care is highly developed, with a total of 127 hospitals, especially São Mateus, Antônio Prudente, Unimed, Monte Klinikum and SARAH-Fortaleza.

Culture

Culture of the Northeast region of Brazil

Having been the first region effectively colonized by the Portuguese, still in the 16th century, who found native populations there and were accompanied by Africans brought as slaves, the northeastern culture is quite particular and typical, although extremely varied. Its base is Luso-Brazilian, with great African influences, especially on the coast from Pernambuco to Bahia and Maranhão, and Amerindians, especially in the semi-arid hinterland.

In João Pessoa, there is a great architectural project designed by Architect Oscar Niemeyer. This is the Cabo Branco Science, Culture and Arts Station, where weekly exhibitions of arts, culture and technology projects developed in the region take place.

Literature

José de Alencar.

Northeastern literature has made great contributions to the Brazilian literary scene, including names such as Jorge Amado, Nelson Rodrigues, José de Alencar, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Rachel de Queiroz, Gregório de Matos, Clarice Lispector, Graciliano Ramos, Gonçalves Dias , Aluísio Azevedo, Manuel Bandeira, Joaquim Nabuco, Tobias Barreto, Arthur Azevedo, Castro Alves, Coelho Neto, Álvaro Lins, Jorge de Lima, Ariano Suassuna, Viriato Correia, Ferreira Gullar, José Lins do Rego, João Ubaldo Ribeiro, Dias Gomes, Raimundo Correia, Josué Montello, among many others. Gilberto Freyre represents a milestone in the history of Brazil, thanks to his book Casa-Grande & Senzala, which demonstrates the importance of slaves for the formation of the country. In Ceará, the Spiritual Bakery movement, at the end of the 19th century, anticipated some of the renovations brought about by modernism in the 1920s of the following century.

In the literature one can also mention the popular cordel literature dating back to the colonial period (the cordel literature was taken by the Portuguese and originated in the European Middle Ages) and numerous popular artistic manifestations that are manifested orally, such as the singers of sudden and embolada.

Music and dance

Frevo, typical manifestation of Pernambuco. As music, it is one of the most influential genres in the country: it revealed great musicians from MPB and, besides being a symbol of the Recife / Olinda carnival, it was the rhythm used in the Salvador Carnival before the emergence of ax music.

In classical music, Alberto Nepomuceno and Paurillo Barroso stood out as composers, as well as Liduíno Pitombeira today, and Eleazar de Carvalho as conductor. Northeastern rhythms and melodies also inspired composers like Heitor Villa-Lobos (whose Brazilian Bachiana nº 5, for example, in its second part - Dança do Martelo - alludes to the backlands of Cariri from Ceará).

In popular music, rhythms such as coco, xaxado, hammer aga stand out lopado, samba de roda, baião, xote, forró, axé and frevo, among other rhythms. The armorial movement of Recife, inspired by Ariano Suassuna, did a scholarly work of valuing this popular northeastern rhythmic heritage. One of its best known exponents is the singer Antônio Nóbrega.

In dance, maracatu, practiced in different parts of the Northeast, frevo, bumba-meu-boi, xaxado, various forró variants, tambor-de-creole (characteristic of Maranhão), etc. stand out. Folk music is almost always accompanied by dances.

Crafts

Handicrafts are also a relevant part of the cultural production of the Northeast, including the livelihood of thousands of people throughout the region. Due to the regional variety of handicraft traditions, it is difficult to characterize them in their entirety, but woven and often embroidered with many details stand out; products made of clay, wood (for example, carnauba, a typical backwoods tree) and leather, with very particular features; in addition to lace, which gained prominence in Ceará handicrafts. Another highlight is the bottles with images made manually in colored sand, an article produced for sale to tourists. In Maranhão, there are handicrafts made from buriti fiber (palm), as well as handicrafts and babassu products (palm tree native to Maranhão).

Cooking

Munguzá, a typical northeastern delicacy.

Northeastern cuisine is varied, reflecting the economic and productive conditions of the diverse geoeconomic landscapes of this region. Seafood and fish are widely used in coastal cuisine, while in the hinterland, recipes that use meat and derivatives of cattle, goats and sheep predominate. Still, there are several regional differences, both in the variety of dishes and in the way they are prepared. For example, in Ceará, mugunzá - also called macunzá or mucunzá - predominates (salty, while in Pernambuco the sweet predominates). In Bahia, the main highlights are foods made with palm oil and shrimp, such as moquecas, vatapá, acarajé and bobós; however, no less appreciated foods accompanied by mush like mocotó and oxtail, as well as sweets like cocada, which is present throughout the northeast. In Maranhão, cuxá, cuxá rice, bobó, stone fish and shrimp pie stand out. Also in Maranhão, Guaraná Jesus stands out, a Maranhão heritage of national fame. The roll cake is an intangible heritage of Pernambuco.

Some typical foods of the region are: baião de dois, carne de sol, coalho cheese, vatapá, acarajé, panelada, buchada, canjica, coconut beans and rice, green beans and sururu , as well as various sweets made from papaya, pumpkin, orange, etc. Some regional fruits - not necessarily native to the region - are ciriguela, cajá, buriti, cajarana, umbu, macaúba, juçara, bacuri, cupuaçu, buriti, murici and pitomba, among others.

Festivities

Olinda dolls, in Olinda. The Recife / Olinda Carnival is considered the most democratic and culturally diverse in the country.

In the festivities, the Northeast region has several events that take place throughout the year:

At Carnival the highlights are the parties of Salvador and Olinda-Recife. The first is the largest popular party on the planet according to the Guinness Book, with about 2.7 million revelers in six days of celebration (equivalent to the number of residents of the city), and internationally known for the parades of famous artists in the electric trios; and the second is popularly considered the most democratic carnival in the country, and is known for its characteristic olinda dolls, the rhythm of frevo and maracatu, in addition to having the largest carnival block in the world, Galo da Madrugada.

The most prominent micaretas (carnivals out of season) are the "Carnatal" in Natal; the "Fortal" in Fortaleza; the "Pré-Caju" in Aracaju; the "Micarande" in Campina Grande. There is also the "bumba-meu-boi" in Maceió and São Luís do Maranhão, the "Micareta de Feira" in Feira de Santana and the "Lavagem do Kimarrei" in Barreiras.

When São João approaches, the cities of Caruaru in Pernambuco and Campina Grande in Paraíba dispute the title of "Capital of Forró". In addition, in Patos, in the state of Paraíba, O Melhor São João do Mundo is held - considered the 4th largest in Brazil and the World.

There are also music festivals, such as the "Salvador Summer Festival" (largest annual festival in Brazil), "Piauí Pop" in Teresina, "Mada" in Natal, "Abril Pro Rock" in Recife, "Ceará Music" "in Fortaleza, the" Fest Verão Paraíba "in João Pessoa, the" Maceió Fest "in Maceió and the" Bahia Winter Festival "in Vitória da Conquista.

sports

Castelão Arena, in Fortaleza.

As in the rest of the country, the Northeast region has football as its main sport. The main northeastern clubs are CSA, CRB and ASA in Alagoas; Bahia and Vitória na Bahia; Fortaleza, Ceará and Ferroviário in Ceará; Sampaio Corrêa, Moto Club and Maranhão in Maranhão; Treze, Campinense and Botafogo-PB in Paraíba; Sport, Santa Cruz and Náutico in Pernambuco; River, Flamengo and Parnahyba in Piauí; America of Natal and ABC in Rio Grande do Norte; and Sergipe, Confiança and Itabaiana in Sergipe.

The Brazilian soccer team usually plays in the Northeast. The Castelão stadium in Fortaleza, the Arruda stadium in Recife, the Rei Pelé stadium in Maceió and, recently, the Pituaçu stadium in Salvador, are the places where the team usually plays. The Fonte Nova Stadium, in Salvador, also receives such matches, however, it was marked by an accident involving fatal victims in 2007.

Autódromo Internacional de Caruaru, Pernambuco.

During the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the Northeast had four host cities: Salvador, Recife, Natal and Fortaleza. Transport networks, hotels and hospitals were built, expanded or renovated, in addition to the renovation and construction of new stadiums. In Salvador, the Fonte Nova Stadium was completely renovated, as well as the Castelão Stadium in Fortaleza. In Recife, the Pernambuco Arena was built, located in São Lourenço da Mata. In Natal, the old Machadão was demolished and, in its place, the Arena das Dunas stadium was built. The four stadiums have been refurbished or built following the FIFA standard. Other northeastern capitals have also applied to host the competition: João Pessoa, Teresina and Maceió. It was the second time that the Northeast participated in a World Cup: in 1950, Recife held the match between Chile and the United States, being the stage of the game at that time Ilha do Retiro.

In motorsport, the Northeast region also receives two annual Formula Truck stages, one at the Autódromo Internacional Ayrton Senna in Caruaru, and one at the Autódromo Internacional Virgílio Távora in Eusébio, Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza. In addition, since 2009, a Stock Car Brasil stage has taken place in the region, more specifically at the Ayrton Senna Circuit, on the streets of the Administrative Center of Bahia, in Salvador.

In other sports, the following regional sports competitions can be cited: Nordestão Governador Miguel Arraes Championship (chess), Costa do Sol Challenge (athletics), Northeast Sevens (rugby seven), Northeast Basketball Supercup (basketball), among many .

Separatism

Separatist movement

The idea of turning the Northeast Region into an independent country began in the late 1980s, in a master's class in Economics at UFPE. During this period, the separatist movement had about fifteen people who supported the idea. Currently, there are about seven people engaged in Pernambuco and about fifty spread across the Northeast (some from outside the initial group). Jacques Ribemboim, engineer, economist and professor of environmental economics, reports that the group is pacifist and wants to talk; for him, the region becoming independent would break with the internal neocolonialism and would give conditions to negotiate directly in the international market and with other countries. He also points out that the current model experienced by the region benefits the growth of the Southeast Region of Brazil and suggests a plebiscite for the northeastern states to decide on the separation. Even without having the main symbols and capital defined, the group has a flag on its Facebook page in white, black and yellow, with a nine-pointed star representing the nine northeastern states. The yellow color symbolizes the region's sun; the white, the pacifist movement; and black, the lack of a federative pact and the neo-colonialism experienced by the states.

Northeast Interstate Sustainable Development Consortium

In 2019, the governments of the states of northeastern Brazil, supported by Federal Law No. 11,107, of April 6, 2005, instituted the Interstate Consortium for Sustainable Development of the Northeast, called the Northeast Consortium. Entity with a legal nature of a public consortium that, among others, has the purpose of strengthening the capacities of consortium members with the merger of resources and the development of synergies.

São João de Caruaru is a June party held in the municipality of Caruaru, in Pernambuco, Brazil. It is the largest regional outdoor party in the world according to Guinness World Records. At the event, which is annual, the festivities extend throughout the month of June and attract thousands of tourists from all over Brazil and abroad. Typical São João party in the Brazilian Northeast, it offers attractions such as June gangs, fireworks, bonfires and traditional corn-based delicacies.

Since the end of the 19th century, the June festivities in Caruaru have already attracted people from surrounding municipalities and the Pernambuco capital, Recife. The festivities were organized at that time on private rural properties. Currently, the city holds the feast of St. John throughout the month of June. Since 1994, the event has been held at Pátio de Eventos Luiz Gonzaga - a 44,000-square-meter complex that houses the Carua Culture Foundation ru, the Barro and Forró Museums, a pavilion for exhibitions, the Municipal Tourism Office and a stage for concerts - in addition to the various hubs scattered throughout the municipality such as Alto do Moura and the Railway Station.

Northeastern culture is quite diverse, as it was influenced by indigenous people, Africans and Europeans. Customs and traditions often vary from state to state.

Having been the first region effectively colonized by the Portuguese, still in the 16th century, who found native populations there and were accompanied by Africans brought as slaves, the northeastern culture is quite particular and typical, although extremely varied. Its base is Luso-Brazilian, with great African influences, especially on the coast from Pernambuco to Bahia and Maranhão, and Amerindians, especially in the semi-arid hinterland.

The cultural richness of the northeast region is visible beyond its folkloric and popular manifestations. Northeastern literature has made a great contribution to the Brazilian literary scene, including names such as João Cabral de Melo Neto, José de Alencar, Jorge Amado, Nelson Rodrigues, Rachel de Queiroz, Gregório de Matos, Clarice Lispector, Graciliano Ramos, Ferreira Gullar and Manuel Bandeira, among many others.

In the literature one can mention the popular cordel literature dating back to the colonial period (the cordel literature came with the Portuguese and has its origins in the European Middle Ages) and numerous popular artistic manifestations that manifest themselves orally, such as the singers of sudden and tangled. In classical music, Alberto Nepomuceno and Paurillo Barroso stood out as composers, as well as Liduíno Pitombeira from Ceará, and Eleazar de Carvalho as conductor. Northeastern rhythms and melodies also inspired composers such as Heitor Villa-Lobos (whose Brazilian Bachiana nº 5, for example, in its second part - Dança do Martelo - alludes to the Cariri sertão).

In popular music, rhythms such as coco, xaxado, agalopado hammer, samba de roda, baião, xote, forró, Axé and frevo stand out, among other rhythms. The armorial movement of Recife, inspired by Ariano Suassuna, did a scholarly work of valuing this popular northeastern rhythmic heritage (one of its best known exponents is the singer Antônio Nóbrega).

In dance, maracatu, frevo (also characteristic of Pernambuco), bumba meu boi, xaxado, various forró variants, the creole drum (characteristic of Maranhão), etc. stand out. Folk music is almost always accompanied by dances.

Handicrafts are also a relevant part of the cultural production of the Northeast, and are even the source of income for thousands of people throughout the region. Due to the regional variety of handicraft traditions, it is difficult to characterize them all, but woven and sometimes embroidered networks with many details stand out; products made of clay, wood (for example, carnauba, a typical backwoods tree) and leather, with very particular features; in addition to lace, which gained prominence in Ceará handicrafts. Another highlight is the bottles with images made manually in colored sand, an article produced for sale to tourists. In Maranhão, there are handicrafts made from buriti fiber (palm), as well as handicrafts and babassu products (palm tree native to Maranhão).

Northeastern cuisine is varied, reflecting, almost always, the economic and productive conditions of the diverse geoeconomic landscapes of this region. Seafood and fish are widely used in coastal cuisine, while in the hinterland, recipes that use meat and derivatives of cattle, goats and sheep predominate. Still, there are several regional differences, both in the variety of dishes and in the way they are prepared.

Popular parties

Carnival

Bloco-Afro Ilê Aiyê in Salvador.

During Carnival, the highlights are the Salvador and Recife-Olinda parties. The first is the largest popular party on the planet according to the Guinness Book, with about 2.7 million revelers in six days of celebration (equivalent to the number of city residents), and internationally known for the parades of famous artists in the electric trios; and the second is considered the most culturally diverse carnival in the country - known for the rhythm of frevo and maracatu and for its characteristic Olinda dolls - and also the most democratic, since revelers do not have to pay to play, in addition to owning the largest carnival block in the world according to the Guinness Book, Galo da Madrugada. The most prominent micaretas (carnivals out of season) are: the "Carnatal" in Natal; the "Fortal" in Fortaleza; the "Pré-Caju" in Aracaju; the "Micareta de Feira" in Feira de Santana; "Marafolia" in São Luís; and "Micarande" in Campina Grande.

Pianco Horse

Bumba meu boi, a dance from the Northeast Region whose first registration took place in Pernambuco, is today the main folkloric manifestation of Maranhão.

It is originally from the municipality of Amarante (PI). O The blacks on the banks of the Canindé River, to chase their sleep away on moonlit nights, usually dance imitating the trot of a lame horse. Gentlemen and ladies, in pairs, form a circle and trot happily, sometimes well paced, hitting the ground firmly, with their left foot, now hurried, always changing pairs.

Bumba-meu-boi

The State of Maranhão is the one that stands out in this folkloric manifestation. There are more than 200 groups of bumba-meu-boi in Maranhão distributed in the accents (types) of orchestra, matraca, pandeirão, zabumba and hand coast. The State of Maranhão exported this game to the State of Amazonas, which with the process occurs throughout Brazil, with the Northeast being named as its birthplace. With significant variations of name, props, music, rhythm, dance ... but the plot is always the same: "Catirina pregnant wants to eat the tongue of the Captain's ox". Only from acculturation he became the ox bumbá. Thus, according to research, the origin of the ox bumbá is from the bumba-meu-boi of Maranhão.

Other typical dances of Maranhão are the Creole drum, the cacuriá and the box bambaê.

Bonfire of São João scenographic in Campina Grande, Paraíba.

June parties

São João is without a doubt the most common celebration in the region. Caruaru, which is the "Capital of Forró" and Campina Grande, compete for the title of the largest São João in the world: in both cities the festivities last the entire month of June. Other cities, such as Aracaju, Juazeiro do Norte, Mossoró, Teresina, São Luís and Patos have more modest celebrations (about fifteen days), and compete for the title of third largest party.

Fires are one of the main attractions. The best known are Estrelinha, Marcianito and Fireworks. In addition to the various fires, there is dance, such as Quadrilha and Forró.

Literature

Cordel literature prints.

Gilberto Freyre, from Pernambuco, represents a milestone in the history of Brazil due to his book Casa-Grande & Senzala that demonstrates the importance of slaves for the formation of the country and that whites and blacks are absolutely equal.

In Bahia, one of the first prominent writers in the country was born. This is Gregório de Matos, a member of the Baroque school. In Romanticism, Gonçalves Dias (MA), José de Alencar (CE) and Castro Alves (BA) and Sousândrade (MA) stood out in the first generation. In the so-called Geração de 30, a rescue from romanticism, Rachel de Queiroz (CE), Graciliano Ramos (AL), José Lins do Rêgo (PB) and Jorge Amado (BA) emerged.

Maruhense Aluísio Azevedo was one of the main authors of Realism / Naturalism. Augusto dos Anjos (PB) and Graça Aranha (MA) were precursors of Modernism, a school that later revealed João Cabral de Melo Neto and Manuel Bandeira (PE), in addition to Jorge de Lima (AL).

Paraiba Ariano Suassuna created the Armorial Movement in the 1970s, an initiative to bring together elements of Northeastern culture in favor of the formation of a genuinely Brazilian classical art. From this initiative, works such as Auto da Compadecida and O Santo e Porca, both by Suassuna, emerged.

In Ceará, Patativa do Assaré surprised by its complex verses that followed metrified forms similar to the verses of Camões. Cordel literature is widespread in the region, with Leandro Gomes de Barros, one from Paraíba, one of the greatest authors of the genre.

Music

Several genres have emerged in the Northeast over the years.

Pernambuco native Luiz Gonzaga was the precursor of baião, a rhythm that alongside others like xote, xaxado and coco are part of the so-called forró. Several artists continued the legacy of Luiz Gonzaga, such as Dominguinhos, Sivuca, Jackson do Pandeiro and Waldonys.

Frevo, typical manifestation of Pernambuco. As music, it is one of the most influential genres in the country: it revealed musicians like Alceu Valença, Geraldo Azevedo, Antônio Nóbrega, among many others, and, in addition to being a symbol of the Recife / Olinda Carnival, it was the rhythm used in the Salvador Carnival before its emergence of axé music. In 2012, the frevo was declared an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Frevo, more common in the states of Pernambuco and Paraíba, is characterized by its fast pace and the steps that resemble capoeira. This genre has already revealed great musicians such as Alceu Valença, Elba Ramalho and Geraldo Azevedo. These three, together with Zé Ramalho, mixed frevo, forró, rock, blues and other rhythms.

The quartet usually perform under the name of The Great Encounter.

In the 1960s, tropicalism emerged in Bahia, inspired by the anthropophagic movement and which would become a landmark in Brazil.

This group included artists Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Zé and Torquato Neto, among others.

Caetano Veloso, one of the main representatives of Tropicália, a Bahian cultural movement that emerged in the 1960s.

Bahia would once again be the birthplace of another musical genre in the 1980s, with the creation of axé music, with Luiz Caldas, Chiclete com Banana, Daniela Mercury, Timbalada and Olodum as precursors.

The genre revolutionized Bahian carnival, since frevo, a Pernambuco rhythm, was used in the Salvador party until then. Currently, the Bahian music industry is the one that generates more stars in Brazil and already has a "constellation" with national and international notoriety such as Ivete Sangalo who is considered the most popular singer in Brazil today and the sales leader in the national music industry , has the ability to drag a legion of fans wherever it goes, including in international lands.

An example of this was Rock in Rio Lisboa in 2004, where the singer broke the public record.

Ivete owns Caco de Telha, an entertainment company with the title of the largest company in the industry in the North – Northeast and among the five largest in the national scenario.

Caco de Telha has already brought major events to Brazil such as the pop singer Beyoncé's I am ... tour, the Black Eyed Peas musical group The End tour, The Grand Moscow Classical Ballet show and Cirque du Soleil performances at Brazil. It has already provided the state of Bahia, in addition to these events with international artists, great shows with national artists such as the Roberto Carlos tour 50 years of music.

Through the shard of Telha, Ivete Sangalo was the star of a mega-production at Madison Square Garden, the temple of modern international music.

In Bahia, João Gilberto was born, considered among all the other precursors of Bossa Nova: Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes and Luiz Bonfá Bossa Nova, the best known Brazilian rhythm in the world.

João Gilberto is considered among the precursors of Bossa Nova the main creator of the rhythm.

Manguebeat, a music genre from Pernambuco that emerged in the underground scene of the 90s, revealed and influenced several musical groups and artists from the state, such as Chico Science, Nação Zumbi, Mundo Livre S / A, Cordel do Fogo Encantado, Fred Zero Quatro, Otto, Lenine (photo), among many others.

In the 1980s, the first major reference of Punk / Hardcore music in the Northeast arose in Pernambuco, with the main name of the band Câmbio Negro HC, a pioneer in the style and the first to produce records of the genre in the region, in addition to being a great reference in music. undergroud of the country.

In the 90s, Manguebeat also appeared in Pernambuco lands, a rhythm that combines rock, hip hop, maracatu and electronic music.

The Recife musical genre emerged in the underground scene, revealing and influencing several musical groups and artists from Pernambuco, such as Chico Science, Nação Zumbi, Mundo Livre S / A, Fred Zero Quatro, Otto, Lenine, among many others.

Suddenly it is very widespread in the countryside, with Cego Aderaldo as a highlight.

The Cabaçal Band of Irmãos Aniceto, a band of fife in Ceará, has international fame.

In Ceará, Fagner, Belchior and Ednardo, icons of MPB, also stand out.

It was also in the Northeast that the Brega was born, whose main representatives are the Pernambuco Reginaldo Rossi and the Bahian Waldick Soriano.

Maranhão has a great diversity of rhythms, such as: Tambor de Crioula, Tambor de Mina, Tambor de Taboca, Tambor de Caroço, the four accents of bumba-meu-boi, besides being one of the main Brazilian strongholds of reggae. Tribo de Jah, one of the main bands of the genre, appeared in the State.

Other prominent Maranhão people are: João do Vale; Cláudio Fontana; Rita Benneditto; Catulo da Paixão Cearense; Flávia Bittencourt; Zeca Baleiro; and Alcione.

Raul Seixas, born in Bahia, is considered the main name of rock in Brazil. He joined the Jovem Guarda movement as a composer. Currently Pitty is also very successful in rock. In addition to the Pernambuco group Cordel do Fogo Encantado, significantly marking contemporary Brazilian popular music.

Cooking

The first records of Brazilian feijoada are from Recife, considered the national dish of Brazil.

Northeastern cuisine is varied, reflecting, almost always, the economic and productive conditions of the diverse geoeconomic landscapes of this region. Seafood and fish are widely used in coastal cuisine, while in the hinterland, recipes that use meat and derivatives of cattle, goats and sheep predominate. Still, there are several regional differences, both in the variety of dishes and in the way they are prepared (for example, in Ceará, salty mungunzá predominates, while in Pernambuco, sweetness predominates). Pernambuco's cuisine stands out for its so-called "Pernambuco sweets", that is, the sweets developed during the colonial and imperial periods in its sugar mills such as the bolo de rolo, the nego bom and the top hat; and also for the drinks and savory delicacies discovered or probably originated in the state, such as cachaça, beiju and feijoada à Brasileira. In Bahia, the main highlights are foods made with palm oil and shrimp, many of them of African origin such as acarajé and vatapá, or moquecas and bobós; however, no less appreciated foods accompanied by mush like mocotó and oxtail and sweets like cocada. In Maranhão, we highlight the cuxá, cuxá rice, bobó, stone fish and shrimp pie, very in the Maranhão style. Also in Maranhão, the soda Jesus or Guaraná Jesus stands out, which is a Maranhão heritage. Some typical foods of the region are: baião de dois, carne de sol, coalho cheese, panelada and buchada de bode, hominy, coconut beans and rice, green beans and sururu, as well as several sweets made from papaya, pumpkin, orange, among others. Some regional fruits - not necessarily native to the region - are ciriguela, cajá, buriti, cajarana, umbu, macaúba, juçara (açaí), bacuri, cupuaçu, buriti, murici and pitomba fruits. others also common in other regions.

Religion

Pilgrims at the foot of the statue of Padre Cícero in Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará.

The predominant religion is Catholic. Some people are venerated as saints, despite the non-recognition of the Catholic Church, as is the case of Padre Cícero, Frei Damião, Padre Ibiapina and Maria de Araújo.

Until 2019, Sister Dulce was not recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. However, on October 13, 2019, she was canonized by Pope Francis, becoming the first woman born in Brazil to be canonized and the 37th Brazilian saint, in addition to the 31st northeastern saint, after the thirty Santos Mártires de Cunhaú and Uruaçu of Rio Grande do Norte.

Pilgrimage pilgrimages to certain cities in the northeast are common, especially Juazeiro do Norte and Canindé (CE), Bom Jesus da Lapa (BA) and Santa Cruz dos Milagres (PI).

Every year in January, the washing of Bonfim takes place in Salvador, a traditional religious celebration whose high point is the washing of the stairs of the Church of Nosso Senhor do Bonfim by the faithful.

Candomblé has several supporters in Bahia, who usually revere Iemanjá by offering gifts to the entity. Such offerings are thrown overboard or deposited in small boats loose on the high seas.

In Maranhão, the Tambor de Mina is a legacy of the African religion in that state. Instead of the orixás - entities - as in Bahia, there are the voduns, gentiles and caboclos or cabôcos (popular language) that are entities that descend on the parents and children of the saint.

Also in Maranhão, there is the Festa de São José de Ribamar, the patron saint of the State, as well as countless other festivals of saints that take place in the capital and in the interior of Maranhão, and the Festa do Divino Espírito Santo, which has syncretism with African religions.

Cangaceiro:

Virgulino Ferreira da Silva, aka Lampião (Serra Talhada, June 4, 1898 - Poço Redondo, July 28, 1938), was a Brazilian cangaceiro who worked in the northeastern hinterland. He became known as Rei do Cangaço, for having been the most successful cangaceiro leader in history.

Source

There is controversy about Lampião's birth date. The most cited are:

June 4, 1898: date on your baptism certificate, one of the most cited in string literature. This day is generally accepted by many due to the custom of the semi-arid regions to first baptize children and register them later, due to a mixture of religiosity and distrust in relation to the constituted civil power and to an "administrative framework" on the part of this . February 12, 1900: date given by Antônio Américo de Medeiros by Lampião himself in an interview with Ceará writer Leonardo Mota, in 1926, in Juazeiro do Norte.

The question of your date of birth becomes even more relevant in the context in which commemorative dates are instituted in your name (July 18), and July 7, which corresponds to the day of your civil registration, as "Dia do Xaxado" ", by the project of the Municipality of Serra Talhada.

Profile

Lampião, in the center, and his wife, Maria Bonita, on the right, photographed by Benjamin Abrahão Botto (1936).

Lampião, Maria Bonita and group of cangaceiros (1936)

Born in the city of Vila Bela, currently Serra Talhada, in the semiarid state of Pernambuco, he was the third son of José Ferreira dos Santos and Maria Sucena da Purificação.

Until the age of 21 he worked as a craftsman. He was literate and wore reading glasses, very unusual characteristics for the backwoods and poor region where he lived. One version of his nickname is that his ability to shoot continuously, lighting up the night with his shots, has earned him the nickname of a lantern.

His family fought a dispute with other local families, usually over land boundaries, until his father was killed in confrontation with the police in 1919. Virgulino swore revenge, and together with two other brothers, he joined the group of cangaceiro Sinhô Pereira . In 1922, he became leader of the gang until then commanded by Sinhô Pereira in Pernambuco. In the same year, he killed the informant who handed his father over to the police, and carried out the biggest assault in the history of the cangaço at that time, against the Baroness of Água Branca in Alagoas.

In addition to the main group, Lampião was in charge of several parallel subgroups, other cangaceiros ahead, like Corisco and Antonio de Engracia.

In 1930 he affectionately joins Maria Bonita in Bahia. In the same year, it appears in the newspaper The New York Times. In 1936, his daily life in the caatinga is photographed and filmed by Benjamin Abrahão Botto.

For almost 20 years, Lampião traveled with his band of cangaceiros, all on horseback and in leather suits, hats, sandals, coats, ammunition belts and pants to protect them from the bushes with thorns typical of the caatinga vegetation. To protect the "captain" (as Lampião was called) and to carry out attacks on farms and municipalities, everyone always used a powerful war power. As there were no arms smugglers to purchase, they were mostly stolen from the police and paramilitary units. The Mauser shotgun and a wide range of semi-automatic pistols and revolvers were also purchased during clashes. The most used weapon was the Winchester rifle. The band called the steering wheel members "monkeys" - an allusion to the way the soldiers fled when they saw Lampião's group: "jumping".

Lampião and his band attacked farms and cities in seven states, in addition to practicing cattle theft, looting, kidnapping, murder, torture, mutilation and rape. His passage caused terror and indignation in the residents, a fact widely quoted in the local press:

“Isn't it a shame what is going on, or rather, is it still happening in northeastern Brazil? And the public authorities, what guarantee do they offer to the unhappy countryman and beaten by all calamities? Even magistrates no longer escape Lampeon's assortments. (...) This is why the sertanejo always has an expression of disbelief on his lips when he is promised to apply measures to disinfest the backlands of the horrible cangaceiro hordes that make the region the most unhappy in the world ”.

Despite this, Lampião and his band were often protected by coiteiros, known as farmers, small farmers or even local authorities who offered shelter and food to the flocks for a short time on the limits of their lands, facilitating the movement of cangaceiros across the Northeast and their flight from the flying forces of the state.

Personal life

His companion, Maria Gomes de Oliveira, known as Maria Déa or as Maria Bonita as nicknamed by the press, joined the band in 1930, being the first of the women to join him.

Virgulino and Maria Déa had a daughter, Expedita Ferreira Nunes, born on September 13, 1932. The couple also reportedly had two stillborn children.

Religion

He was devoted to Father Cícero and respected his beliefs and advice. The two met only once, in 1926, in Juazeiro do Norte.

Death

Crosses marking the death of Lampião and his band, in Poço Redondo, Sergipe.

The heads of cangaceiros including Lampião (on the first step) and Maria Bonita (in the center, on the second step) in the city of Piranhas in Alagoas.

On July 27, 1938, the band camped at the Angicos farm, located in the sertão of Sergipe, a hiding place considered by Lampião as the most secure. It was night, it rained a lot and everyone slept in their tents. The steering wheel arrived so quietly that even the dogs didn't notice. At about 5:00 am on the 28th, the cangaceiros got up to pray the craft and were getting ready to drink coffee; when a cangaceiro gave the alarm, it was too late.

It is not known for certain who betrayed them. However, in that safer place, the gang was caught completely off guard. When the officers of Lieutenant João Bezerra and Sergeant Aniceto Rodrigues da Silva opened fire with portable machine guns, the cangaceiros were unable to make any viable defense attempt.

The attack lasted about twenty minutes and few managed to escape the siege and death. Of the thirty-four cangaceiros present, eleven died on the spot. Lampião was one of the first to die. Soon after, Maria Bonita was seriously injured. Some cangaceiros, upset by the unexpected death of their leader, managed to escape. Quite euphoric with the victory, the police seized the property and mutilated the dead. They seized all the money, gold and jewelry.

The driving force, in a very inhumane way for today, but following the custom of the time, severed Lampião's head. Maria Bonita was still alive, despite being very wounded, when she was beheaded. The same occurred with Thursday, Mergulhão (the two also had their heads taken off in life), Luís Pedro, Electric, Enedina, Coin, Rosemary, Colchete (2) and Macela. One of the policemen, showing hatred towards Lampião, strikes a rifle butt on his head, deforming it. This detail contributed to spread the legend that Lampião had not been killed and had escaped the ambush, such was the change caused in the cangaceiro's physiognomy. "That done, they salted their victory trophies and put them in kerosene cans, containing brandy and lime." The mutilated bodies s and bloodied were left in the open, attracting vultures. To prevent the spread of disease, a few days later creolina was placed on the bodies. As some vultures died of poisoning by creolina, this fact helped to spread the belief that they had been poisoned before the attack, with food delivered by the traitorous coiter.

The Resistance Memorial located in Mossoró in Rio Grande do Norte is a museum that portrays the history of the only northeastern city to resist the invasion of the Lampião gang.

Colonel João Bezerra, traveling through the northeastern states, showed his heads - already in an advanced state of decomposition - wherever he passed, attracting a crowd of people. First, the trophies were in Piranhas, where they were carefully arranged on the steps of the City Hall, along with weapons and paraphernalia, and photographed. Then they were taken to Maceió and southeastern Brazil.

At the IML in Aracaju, the heads were observed by the doctor Dr. Carlos Menezes. After measures, weighed and examined, the criminalists changed the theory that a good man would not become a cangaceiro, and that he should have sui generis characteristics. Contrary to what they thought, the heads did not show any signs of physical degeneration, anomalies or dysplasias, having been classified, quite simply, as normal.

From the southeast of the country, despite the poor state of conservation, the heads went to Salvador, where they remained for six years at the Faculty of Dentistry at UFBA. There, they were measured, weighed and studied again, in an attempt to discover some pathology. Subsequently, the remains were on display at the Estácio de Lima Anthropological Museum located in the building of the Instituto Médico Legal Nina Rodrigues, in Salvador, for more than three decades.

For a long time, the families of Lampião, Corisco and Maria Bonita struggled to give their relatives a proper burial. The economist Sílvio Bulhões, son of Corisco and Dadá, in particular, undertook many efforts to bury the remains of the cangaceiros and to stop, once and for all, the macabre public exhibition. According to the economist's testimony, ten days after his father's burial, the grave was violated, the body was exhumed, and his head and left arm were cut off and put on display at the Nina Rodrigues Museum.

The burial of the remains of the cangaceiros only took place after Bill 2,867, of May 24, 1965. This project originated in the university circles of Brasília (in particular, in the lectures of the poet Euclides Formiga), and the pressures of the people Brazilian and clergy groups reinforced it. The heads of Lampião and Maria Bonita were buried on February 6, 1969. The other members of the gang were buried a week later.

Pernambuco is one of the 27 federative units in Brazil. It is located in the center-east of the Northeast region and has the states of Paraíba (N), Ceará (NO), Alagoas (SE), Bahia (S) and Piauí (O) as its limits, in addition to being bathed by Atlantic Ocean (L). It occupies an area of 98 149,119 km² (6.57% greater than Portugal). Also part of its territory are the archipelagos of Fernando de Noronha and São Pedro and São Paulo. Its capital is Recife and its administrative headquarters is the Palace of Campo das Princesas. The current governor is Paulo Câmara (PSB).

Pernambuco was the first economic nucleus in Brazil, as it excelled in the exploitation of pau-brasil (also referred to as pau-de-pernambuco) and was the first part of the country where the sugarcane culture developed effectively. The Captaincy of Pernambuco, the richest of the captaincies of Portuguese America during the Sugar Cycle, reached the position of the world's largest producer of the merchandise. In the state, many of the first historical events of the New World occurred: in Cabo de Santo Agostinho there was the discovery of Brazil by the Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón on January 26, 1500; and on the island of Itamaracá, the first "Governor of the Parts of Brazil" was established in 1516, Pero Capico, who built the first sugar mill known in Portuguese America there. Pernambuco also had an active participation in several episodes of Brazilian history: it was the scene of the Battles of the Guararapes, decisive battles in the Pernambucan Insurrection and considered the origin of the Brazilian Army; and served as a cradle for movements of a nativist character or libertarian ideals, such as the Peddler War, the Pernambucan Revolution, the Confederation of Ecuador and the Praieira Revolution. The state gave rise to internationally renowned personalities: physicists and mathematicians such as Mário Schenberg, José Leite Lopes, Leopoldo Nachbin, Paulo Ribenboim, Samuel MacDowell and Aron Simis; writers such as Paulo Freire, João Cabral de Melo Neto, Manuel Bandeira, Clarice Lispector, Oliveira Lima and Nelson Rodrigues; polymaths such as Gilberto Freyre, Joaquim Nabuco, Josué de Castro, Joaquim Cardozo, Antônio Austregésilo and Cristovam Buarque;

entrepreneurs such as José Ermírio de Moraes, Norberto Odebrecht, Antônio de Queiroz Galvão, Edson Mororó Moura, Anita Harley and Flávio Rocha; historical leaders and characters such as Frei Caneca, Lampião, Araújo Lima, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Correia Picanço and Cardeal Arcoverde; musicians such as Luiz Gonzaga, Alceu Valença, Geraldo Azevedo, Dominguinhos, Bezerra da Silva and Naná Vasconcelos; audiovisual professionals such as Chacrinha, Marco Nanini, Arlete Salles, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Guel Arraes and Aguinaldo Silva; plastic artists and designers such as Romero Britto, Francisco Brennand, Marianne Peretti, Cícero Dias, Tunga and Aloísio Magalhães; sportsmen such as Rivaldo, Vavá, Ademir de Menezes, Jaqueline, Dani Lins and Karol Meyer; among several other names.

Pernambuco is the seventh most populous federative unit in Brazil, and has the tenth largest GDP in the country and the highest GDP per capita among the northeastern states. Its capital, Recife, on the other hand, is home to the richest and most populous urban concentration in the North-Northeast. In the interior of the state, the most important cities are Caruaru and Petrolina. Known for its active and rich popular culture, Pernambuco is the cradle of several traditional manifestations, such as capoeira, coconut, frevo and maracatu, as well as having a vast historical, artistic and architectural heritage, especially with regard to the period colonial. In 1970 the Armorial Movement arose in the state, whose central figure was the writer Ariano Suassuna. Two decades later, another important movement appeared that constituted a kind of counterpoint to the Armorial: the Manguebeat, whose greatest exponent was the artist Chico Science. Pernambuco has the nickname Leão do Norte, an expression that originates in the figure of arms of the former captain-donatary Duarte Coelho, in reference to the courage and combative spirit of the people of Pernambuco. The term is currently symbolized both on the state coat of arms and on the flag of the city of Recife, and was also inspiration for the song of the same name by the composer Lenine.

Etymology

For some scholars, the origin of the name "Pernambuco" is related to the Santa Cruz Canal, which surrounds the island of Itamaracá.

Paranãbuku, from Tupi: for a portion of the researchers, a probable allusion to the Capibaribe River.

The origin of the name Pernambuco is controversial. Some scholars claim that it comes from the agglutination of the Tupian terms para'nã, which means “rio grande” or “mar”, and buka, “hole”. Thus, Pernambuco would be a “hole in the sea”, referring to the Canal de Santa Cruz on the Island of Itamaracá or the opening that exists in the reefs between Olinda and Recife. According to others, it was the name in the local indigenous languages of the time of discovery for the brazilwood. A third hypothesis would also come from tupi, paranãbuku, that is, “rio comprido”, a probable allusion to the capybaras river, Capibaribe, since primitive maps mark such a “Pernambuco river” to the north of Cabo de Santo Agostinho. There is also a fourth hypothesis, suggested by the researcher Jacques Ribemboim, according to which the etymology would have its origin in the Portuguese language: the Canal de Santa Cruz, at the beginning of the 16th century, was known as "Boca de Fernão" (reference to the explorer of pau- Brasil Fernão de Noronha), and the Indians possibly called it something close to "Pernão Boca" or "Pernambuka", which would have given rise to the name Pernambuco.

Bento Teixeira, in his poem Prosopopeia published in 1601 - the first poem of Brazilian literature, which tells in epic style, inspired by Camões, the exploits of the Albuquerque family, having been dedicated to the then governor of Pernambuco, Jorge de Albuquerque Coelho -, wrote a stanza that tells the meaning of the word Pernambuco:

"In the midst of this alpine work, and hard,

A mouth broke through the swollen sea,

That in the dark language of barbarians,

Paranambuco, everyone is called.

From Parana that is Mar, Puca - rupture,

Made with fury from that salty sea,

That without drifting, committing shortage,

Cova do Mar is called in our language. "

The natural inhabitants of the state of Pernambuco are called Pernambuco.

History of Pernambuco

Prehistory and Antiquity

Rock paintings in the Catimbau Valley. Pernambuco is home to archaeological sites dating back at least 11,000 years.

The Brazilian Northeast concentrates some of the oldest known archaeological sites in the country, dating back more than 40 thousand years before the present. In the region that today corresponds to the state of Pernambuco, safe traces of human occupation over 11 thousand years were identified in the regions of Chã do Caboclo, in Bom Jardim, and Furna do Estrago, in Brejo da Madre de Deus. In this last region, an important prehistoric necropolis was discovered, with 125 square meters of covered area, from which 83 human skeletons were recovered in good condition.

Among the indigenous groups that inhabited the state, the Itaparica cultural tradition, responsible for the manufacture of chipped lithic artifacts for more than 6 thousand years, was identified. In the wild In the state of Rio de Janeiro, cave paintings with an approximate date of two thousand years before the present are preserved, attributed to the subtradition called Cariris Velho. At the time of Portuguese colonization, caetés and tabajaras inhabited the coast of Pernambuco, which had already disappeared. In the highland swamps of the state it is still possible to find indigenous groups remaining from the old traditions, such as the Pankararu (in Tacaratu) and the Atikum (in Floresta).

Discovery of Brazil by Vicente Yáñez Pinzón

Discovery of Brazil

Cabo de Santo Agostinho, on the south coast of Pernambuco, was the site of the discovery of Brazil by Vicente Yáñez Pinzón on January 26, 1500.

Many scholars claim that the discoverer of Brazil was the Spanish navigator Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, who on January 26, 1500 landed at Cabo de Santo Agostinho, south coast of Pernambuco - this considered the oldest proven trip to Brazilian territory.

The squadron, made up of four caravels, left Palos de la Frontera on November 19, 1499. After crossing the Equator, Pinzón faced a strong storm, and then, on January 26, 1500, he spotted the cable and anchored its ships in a sheltered port with easy access to small boats, with 16 feet deep, according to the rig's instructions. That port was the Suape cove, located on the southern slope of the promontory, which the Spanish expedition called Cabo de Santa María de la Consolación. Spain did not claim the discovery, which was meticulously recorded by Pinzón and documented by important chroniclers of the time, such as Pietro Martire d'Anghiera and Bartolomeu de las Casas, due to the Treaty of Tordesillas, signed with Portugal.

Juan de la Cosa's 15th century map shows the South American coast adorned with Castilian flags from Cabo da Vela (in present-day Colombia) to the eastern end of the continent. There appears a text that says "This cavo is discovered in the year III mili XC IX by Castilla being discovered vicentians" ("This cable was discovered in 1499 by Castile being the discoverer Vicente Yáñez") and that very probably refers to the arrival of Pinzón in late January 1500 to Cabo de Santo Agostinho.

For discovering Brazil, Vicente Yáñez Pinzón was decorated by King Fernando II of Aragon on September 5, 1501.

Pre-colonial period and early colonial period

Sugar Cycle, Plundering of Recife, Iberian Union and Anglo-Spanish War

Olinda was the richest city in Colonial Brazil from its creation until the Dutch Invasion, when it was destroyed. It is the oldest of the Brazilian cities declared Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

São Francisco Convent, the oldest Franciscan convent in Brazil, located in Olinda.

The Church of Saints Cosme and Damião, in Igarassu, is the oldest church in Brazil according to IPHAN.

In 1501, the year following the arrival of Europeans in Brazil, the territory of Pernambuco, defined by the Treaty of Tordesillas as a region belonging to Portuguese America, is explored by Gonçalo Coelho's expedition, which would have created factories along the coast of the colony, including possibly in the current location of Igarassu, whose defense would be entrusted to Cristóvão Jacques in the future. Soon Pernambuco would become the main exploration area for pau-brasil (or pau-de-pernambuco) in the New World. The wood from Pernambuco was of such a superior quality that it regulated the price in European trade, which explains the fact that the Brazilwood tree has as its main name "Pernambuco" in languages such as French and Italian. In 1516, the first sugar mill in Portuguese America was built on the coast of Pernambuco, more precisely at the Feitoria de Itamaracá, entrusted to the colonial administrator Pero Capico - the first "Governor of the Parts of Brazil". In 1526 there were already rights to Pernambuco sugar at Alfândega de Lisboa.

In the year 1532, Bertrand d'Ornesan, the baron of Saint Blanchard, tried to establish a trading post in Pernambuco. With the ship A Peregrina, belonging to the French nobleman, Captain Jean Duperet took the Feitoria de Igarassu and fortified it with several cannons, leaving it under the command of a certain gentleman from La Motte. Months later, on the coast of Andalusia in Spain, the Portuguese captured the French vessel, which was packed with 15,000 logs of brazilwood, 3,000 skins of jaguar, 600 parrots and 1.8 ton of cotton, in addition to medicinal oils, pepper, cotton seeds and mineral samples. And just as A Peregrina was apprehended in the Mediterranean Sea, Portuguese captain Pero Lopes de Sousa was fighting the French in Pernambuco. The factory resumed, French soldiers were arrested and La Motte was hanged. After being informed of the mission that Peregrina had carried out in Pernambuco, King Dom João III decided to begin colonizing Brazil, dividing its territory into hereditary captaincies. The effective settlement of the Pernambuco territory. The current state of Pernambuco is equivalent to part of the Captaincy of Pernambuco, donated by Dom João III on March 10, 1534 to Duarte Coelho, and part of the Captaincy of Itamaracá, donated to Pero Lopes de Sousa. The Foral da Capitania de Pernambuco served as a model for the charters of the other captaincies in Brazil. In 1535, Duarte Coelho took possession of the captaincy that was granted to him, at first named "Nova Lusitânia", but that shortly afterwards received the denomination that he keeps today. In 1537, the towns of Igarassu and Olinda, established in the year of the grantee's arrival, were elevated to town. Olinda received the status of administrative capital, and its port, inhabited by fishermen, gave rise to the current city of Recife.

The villages of Olinda and Igarassu, among the first settlement centers in Brazil, served as a starting point for pioneering expeditions from the interior of the captaincy. One of these expeditions, led by the grantee's son, Jorge de Albuquerque, penetrated the hinterland to the São Francisco River, ensuring dominance and expansion of the interior of the territory and fighting hostile Indians. Duarte Coelho, in turn, tried to install large sugar mills in the territory of Pernambuco, also encouraging the planting of cotton. In a short time, the Captaincy of Pernambuco became the main sugar producer in the colony. Consequently, it was also the most prosperous and influential of the hereditary captaincies. The prototype of the sugar society of the large sugar cane landowners appears in Pernambuco, which will last for the majority of the two centuries that followed. The cultivation of sugar cane easily adapted to the Pernambuco climate and to the massapê soil. The greater geographical proximity of Portugal, cheapening the cost of transportation, the abundance of brazilwood, the cultivation of cotton and the large investments made by the donatory in the foundation of villages and in the pacification of the Indians are other factors that help explain the progress of the captaincy. Speaking about the center of the colonial economy, Father Fernão Cardim said that "in Pernambuco one finds more vanity than in Lisbon", an opulence that seemed to be taking place, as suggested by Gabriel Soares de Sousa in 1587, from the fact that he was the captaincy " so powerful (...) that there are more than one hundred men who have between one thousand and five thousand cruzados in income, and some eight, ten thousand cruzados. Many rich men came out of this land to these kingdoms that were very poor " . Pernambuco's prosperity, however, transformed the captaincy into a coveted spot for European pirates and corsairs. In 1595, during the Anglo-Spanish War, the English admiral James Lancaster took the port of Recife by storm, where he remained for almost a month looting the wealth transported from the interior, in the episode known as Saque do Recife. It was the only Corsican expedition from England that had Brazil as its main objective, and represented the richest booty in the history of Corsican navigation in the Elizabethan period.

Around the beginning of the 17th century, the Captaincy of Pernambuco was the largest and richest area of sugar production in the world.

Pernambuco and foreign invasions in Maranhão and Bahia

Matias de Albuquerque, Count of Alegrete, administered the State of Brazil from Olinda between 1624 and 1625.

The first decades of the 17th century were turbulent on the coast of today's Northeast Brazil. In Pernambuco, efforts were concentrated on the expulsion of foreign forces that invaded the coast of Brazil.

In 1612, the French founded a colony in Maranhão that became known as Equinocial France. Jerônimo de Albuquerque, Olinda's military, was then charged by the Captain-mor of Pernambuco, Alexandre de Moura, to expel the French from Maranhão. Troops left Recife, and in November 1614 the final battle, the Combat de Guaxenduba, was fought, with the victory of the forces commanded by Jerônimo. Six days later the fighting was suspended, with a treaty signed by French commander Daniel de La Touche, Senhor de la Ravardière, and Jerônimo de Albuquerque, in which la Ravardière undertook to deliver the Fort of São Luís in five months, which effectively happened . In view of this achievement, Jerônimo de Albuquerque, by the act of King Philip III of Spain, officially received the surname Maranhão.

Years later, on May 10, 1624, an expedition by the Dutch West India Company attacked and conquered Salvador. The Governor of the Captaincy of Pernambuco, Matias de Albuquerque, was then appointed Governor-General, administering the colony from Olinda, and sending expressive reinforcements to the guerrillas based in Arraial do Rio Vermelho and Recôncavo. However, the Dutch were only expelled from there the following year, with the arrival of a powerful Portuguese-Spanish armada made up of ships from the ports of Cádiz, Lisbon and Recife. Francisco de Moura Rolim, who had commanded the caravel fleet of Pernambuco, became in 1625 Governa General, appointed by his predecessor Matias de Albuquerque. They were, therefore, the first governors-general born in Brazil. In the middle of 1626, Matias de Albuquerque tried to establish fortified positions in the port of Recife in order to dissuade the Dutch Company of the West Indies from the idea undertaken in Bahia.

Dutch invasion in Pernambuco (1630-1654)

Recife was the most cosmopolitan city in America during the government of the German count (in the service of the Dutch crown) Maurício de Nassau.

Kahal Zur Israel, the first synagogue on the American continent.

Dutch invasions of Brazil, New Holland and Luso-Dutch War

With the resources obtained in the plunder of the Spanish silver fleet, the Netherlands arms a new expedition, this time against Pernambuco, the richest of all Portuguese possessions. Its stated aim was to restore the sugar trade with the Netherlands, prohibited by the Spanish Crown. The Dutch saw the taking of Olinda and Recife as an opportunity to impose a severe blow on the kingdom of Philip IV.

On December 26, 1629, an extraordinary squadron with 67 ships and about 7 thousand men was leaving Cape Verde towards Pernambuco, the largest ever seen in the colony, under the command of Admiral Hendrick Lonck. The Dutch, disembarking on the beach of Pau Amarelo, conquered the captaincy in February 1630 and established the colony Nova Holanda. The fragile Portuguese resistance at the crossing of the Doce River was defeated, and the Dutch invaded Olinda without major setbacks. The panicked residents fled taking what they could. Some pockets of containment were eliminated, highlighting the brave struggle of Captain André Temudo in defense of the Igreja da Misericórdia. In a few days, Olinda and its port, Recife, were taken.

Count Maurice of Nassau landed in Nieuw Holland, New Holland, in 1637, accompanied by a team of architects and engineers. At this point, the construction of Mauritsstad (now Recife) begins, which was equipped with bridges, dikes and canals to overcome local geographic conditions. The architect Pieter Post was responsible for the layout of the new city and of buildings such as the Friborg Palace, the seat of Nassau's power in New Holland, which had an astronomical observatory - the first in the Southern Hemisphere - and housed the first lighthouse and first zoobotanical garden on the American continent. On February 28, 1643, Recife (currently the Recife district) was connected to Mauritius with the construction of the first large bridge in Latin America. During the Nassau government, Recife was considered the most cosmopolitan city in America, and had the largest Jewish community on the entire continent, which built, at the time, the first synagogue in the New World, Kahal Zur Israel, as well as the second, to Maguen Abraham. In Nova Holanda the first coins were minted on Brazilian soil: florins (gold) and soldos (silver), which contained the word Brazil. For several reasons, one of the most important being the dismissal of Maurício de Nassau from the government of the captaincy by the Dutch Company of the West Indies, the people of Pernambuco rebelled against the government, joining the weak resistance that still exists, in a movement called Pernambucana Insurrection .

Olinda was looted and destroyed by the Dutch, who chose Recife as the capital of New Holland. Nicolaes Visscher's map shows the siege of Olinda and Recife in 1630.

Naval Battle of Abrolhos, confrontation between Portuguese-Spanish and Dutch fought off the coast of Pernambuco in September 1631.

The ill-fated attack by the Portuguese-Spanish armada against the Dutch in Recife in 1636.

Pernambucan Insurrection (1645-1654)

Pernambucan Insurrection

Batalha dos Guararapes, decisive episodes in the Pernambuco insurrection, are considered the origin of the Brazilian Army.

On May 15, 1645, gathered at Engenho de São João, 18 insurgent leaders from Pernambuco signed a commitment to fight against Dutch domination in the captaincy. With the agreement signed, the counterattack to the Dutch invasion begins. The first important victory of the insurgents took place at Monte das Tabocas (today located in the municipality of Vitória de Santo Antão), where 1,200 insurgent mazombos armed with firearms, sickles, sticks and arrows defeated an ambush 1,900 well-armed and well-trained Dutchmen. The success gave the leader Antônio Dias Cardoso the nickname Mestre das Emboscadas. The Dutch who survived went to Casa Forte, being defeated again by the alliance of mazombos, native Indians and black slaves. They retreated again to the fortifications at Cabo de Santo Agostinho, Pontal de Nazaré, Sirinhaém, Rio Formoso, Porto Calvo and Forte Maurício, being successively defeated by the insurgents. Surrounded and isolated by the rebels in a strip that became known as Nova Holanda, going from Recife to Itamaracá, the invaders began to suffer from the lack of food, which led them to attack mandioc plantations and in the villages of São Lourenço, Catuma and Tejucupapo. On April 24, 1646, the famous Battle of Tejucupapo took place, where peasant women armed with agricultural utensils and small arms expelled the Dutch invaders, humiliating them definitively. This historical fact was consolidated as the first important military participation of women in the defense of Brazilian territory.

The Friborg Palace (1642), place of residence and dispatches of Maurício de Nassau, was demolished in the 18th century due to the damage caused during the Pernambucana Insurrection.

With the gradual arrival of Portuguese reinforcements, the Dutch were finally expelled in 1654, in the second Battle of Guararapes. The date of the first of the Guararapes Battles is considered the origin of the Brazilian Army. Once the Dutch colony was taken, the Jews were given three months to leave or convert to Catholicism. Afraid of the Inquisition's fire, almost everyone sold what they had and left Recife on 16 ships. Part of the Jewish community expelled from Pernambuco fled to Amsterdam, and another part settled in New York. Through this last group, Manhattan Island, the current financial center of the United States, has experienced great economic development; and descendants of Jews from Recife had an active participation in American history: Gershom Mendes Seixas, an ally of George Washington in the United States War of Independence; his son Benjamin Mendes Seixas, founder of the New York Stock Exchange; Benjamin Cardozo, United States Supreme Court judge linked to Franklin Roosevelt; among others. Due to the First Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch Republic was unable to assist the Dutch in Brazil. With the end of the war against the British, Holland demanded the return of the colony in May 1654. Under the threat of a new invasion of the Brazilian Northeast, Portugal signed an agreement with the Dutch and compensated them with 4 million cruzados and two colonies: the Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and the Maluku Islands (part of present-day Indonesia). On August 6, 1661, Holland formally ceded the region to the Portuguese Empire through the Peace of The Hague.

Quilombo dos Palmares

Pátio do Carmo, in Recife, where the head of Zumbi dos Palmares was exposed until total decomposition.

Quilombo dos Palmares

Quilombo dos Palmares was a quilombo from the Brazilian colonial era. It was located in the then Captaincy of Pernambuco, in the Serra da Barriga, region today belonging to the Alagoas municipality of União dos Palmares. Palmares was the largest quilombos of the colonial period. In 1602, there are already reports of its existence and dispatches of expeditions by the governor-general of the Captaincy of Pernambuco to end the settlement. It reached an area of 150 kilometers long and 50 kilometers wide, located on the Captaincy of Pernambuco, between the current states of Alagoas and Pernambuco, in a region of palm trees (hence its name). Its population would have reached an estimated 6,000 to 20,000 people. Both for its proportions and for its prolonged resistance, it became a symbol of slave resistance. The movement of the slaves to escape into the forest came from afar, but the Dutch invasion in Pernambuco was a great opportunity for them. For almost 70 years, black fugitives lived in peace, establishing in Palmares a type of African state based on small property and polyculture. With the end of Dutch rule in Pernambuco, the quilombo began to suffer attacks from farmers and authorities, who saw it as a threat. While it existed, Palmares attracted the slaves to escape. Black resistance lasted for many years and the quilombo's existence lasted for almost a century, with King Ganga Zumba and his successor, Zumbi, standing out among their leaders.

Pernambuco was the richest captaincy of Colonial Brazil. The territory of Pernambuco, at its peak (map), extended from the current state of Ceará to the current West of Bahia.

Nativist, libertarian and separatist movements

Conjuration of "Our Father", War of the Peddlers, Conspiracy of the Suassunas, Pernambucan Revolution, Beberibe Convention, Confederation of Ecuador and the Beach Revolution

Conjuration of "Our Father" (1666)

The Captaincy of Pernambuco was fighting to rebuild Recife and Olinda, both destroyed with the struggles against the Dutch invaders. The planters, based in Olinda and with reservations about the port of Recife, believed they deserved greater recognition from the Portuguese Crown, for their contribution to the expulsion of the Dutch. Portugal, however, sent to govern the captaincy Jerônimo de Mendonça Furtado, a stranger, thus contradicting the interests of many Pernambucans, who believed themselves worthy of occupying the role, and not a foreigner. Mendonça Furtado was pejoratively nicknamed Xumberga (or, in some other versions, Xumbregas), reference to Field Marshal Friedrich Von Schönberg - hired by Count de Soure as a mercenary and who had fought in G uerra da Restauração - for having a mustache similar to his. The trigger of the movement, which culminated in the arrest and deposition of the governor, was the stay, in the port of Recife, of a French squadron, which, by order of the Court, were treated well. The insurgents spread the news that the governor would be at the service of foreigners, who were preparing an attack on the captaincy, and their subsequent looting.

Pernambucana Revolution, the only libertarian movement of the period of Portuguese domination that surpassed the conspiratorial phase.

Frei Caneca, who was involved in the Pernambuco Revolution, was leader and martyr of the Confederation of Ecuador.

Peddler's War (1710-1711)

After the Dutch invasion, many traders from Portugal - pejoratively called "peddlers" - settled in Recife, bringing prosperity to the village. The development of Recife was viewed with suspicion by Olindenses, mostly planters in economic difficulties. The conflict of political and economic interests between the sugar nobility in Pernambuco and the new bourgeoisies gave rise to the Muscat War, during which Recife was the scene of fighting and sieges. The Peddler War is considered a nativist movement by historiography in Brazilian history.

Conspiracy of the Suassunas (1801)

The Suassunas Conspiracy was a revolt project that was registered in Olinda at the dawn of the 19th century. Influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, some people, including Manuel Arruda Câmara - a member of the Literary Society of Rio de Janeiro, founded in 1796 in the Pernambuco municipality of Itambé the first Masonic lodge in Brazil, Areópago de Itambé, of which Europeans did not participate. The same ideas were also discussed by priests and students at the Seminary of Olinda, founded by Bishop Dom José Joaquim da Cunha Azeredo Coutinho on February 16, 1800. This institution had among its members Father Miguelinho, one of the future involved in the Pernambucana Revolution of 1817.

Pernambuco Revolution (1817)

The so-called Pernambucan Revolution, also known as the "Revolution of the Fathers", was an emancipationist movement that broke out on March 6, 1817 in Pernambuco. Among its causes, the influence of the Enlightenment ideas propagated by Masonic societies, Portuguese monarchical absolutism and the enormous expenses of the Royal Family and its retinue to Brazil, the Captaincy of Pernambuco, then the most profitable of the colony, were highlighted. forced to send to Rio de Janeiro large sums of money to pay for wages, food, clothes and parties for the Court, which made it difficult to face local problems (such as the drought that occurred in 1816) and caused the delay in payment of soldiers, generating great discontent among the people of Pernambuco. It was the only libertarian movement of the period of Portuguese domination that surpassed the conspiratorial phase and reached the revolutionary process of seizing power. The repression was bloody: many rebels were stabbed or hanged with their dismembered bodies after they died, while others died in prison. Also in retaliation, Pernambuco was dismembered, with the sanction of Dom João VI, the Comarca das Alagoas, whose rural owners had remained loyal to the Crown, and as a reward, they were able to form an independent captaincy.

Luís do Rego Barreto, the executioner of the Pernambuco Revolution, returned to Europe in 1821: Pernambuco was the first Brazilian province to expel the Portuguese armies.

The revolutionaries, coming from various parts of the colony, had as main objective the conquest of the independence of Brazil in relation to Portugal, with the implantation of a liberal republic. The movement shook confidence in the construction of the American empire dreamed by Dom João, and for this reason it is considered the precursor of the independence achieved in 1822.

Beberibe Convention (1821)

Pernambuco was the first Brazilian province to separate from the Kingdom of Portugal, eleven months before the proclamation of Independence from Brazil by Prince Dom Pedro de Orleans and Bragança. On August 29, 1821, an armed movement began against the government of Captain General Luís do Rego Barreto - the executioner of the Pernambuco Revolution -, culminating in the formation of the Junta de Goiana, becoming victorious with the surrender of the Portuguese troops in a capitulation signed on October 5 of the same year, when the Beberibe Convention, responsible for the expulsion of Portuguese armies from Pernambuco territory. The 1821 Constitutionalist Movement is considered the first episode of Brazil's Independence.

Confederation of Ecuador (1824)

The Confederation of Ecuador was a revolutionary movement, of a separatist and republican character, which took place in Pernambuco. It is considered an offshoot of the Pernambucan Revolution, and represented the main reaction against the absolutist tendency and the centralizing policy of the government of the emperor Dom Pedro I (1822 -1831), outlined in the Charter Granted in 1824, the country's first Constitution.

Army of the Empire of Brazil attacks the Confederate forces in Recife in 1824, in the context of the Confederation of Ecuador.

Dom Pedro I, even after the Independence of Brazil, remained tied to the interests of the Portuguese Crown, and was sympathetic to a proposal, made by his father Dom João VI, to recreate the United Kingdom based on a formula that would grant Brazil a wide autonomy, because in this way it would preserve its rights to the Portuguese throne. The formula, however, was seen by many Pernambucans as an attempt at recolonization. In addition, the province of Pernambuco resented paying high taxes to the Empire, which justified them as necessary to carry on the post-independence provincial wars (some provinces resisted the separation from Portugal). Pernambuco hoped that the first Constitution of the Empire would be of the federalist type, and would give the provinces autonomy to resolve their issues.

The repression of the movement was severe. The emperor borrowed from England and hired troops abroad, who went to Recife under Thomas Cochrane. The rebels were subdued, and several leaders of the revolt, such as Frei Caneca, were hanged or shot. Also in retaliation, Dom Pedro I disconnected from the territory of Pernambuco, through a decree of July 7, 1824, the extensive District of Rio de São Francisco (now West Bahia), passing it, initially, to Minas Gerais and, later, to Bahia. This was the last portion of land dismembered from Pernambuco, imposing on the province a great reduction of the territorial extension, from 250 thousand km² to 98 thousand km².

Praieira Revolution (1848-1850)

Map of the Province of Pernambuco, 1889. National Archive.

The Praieira Revolution, also called "Praieira Insurrection", "Praieira Revolt" or simply "Praieira", was a liberal and separatist movement that took place in the province of Pernambuco between the years 1848 and 1850. The last of the provincial revolts is linked to the political and party struggles that marked the Regency Period and the beginning of the Second Reign. His defeat represented a show of strength by the government of Dom Pedro II (1840-1889). The Brazilian monarchy was fiercely contested by the new liberal ideas of the time. In addition to discontent with the imperial government, a large part of the population of Pernambuco was dissatisfied with the concentration of land and political power in the province, the most important in the Northeast. It was in this context that the Partido da Praia emerged, created to oppose the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party, both dominated by two powerful families who lived making political agreements with each other. There were a series of power disputes, until, on November 7, 1848, armed struggle began. In Olinda, the beach leaders launched the “Manifesto to the World”, and started to fight against the troops of the imperial government, which intervened and ended the biggest insurrection that occurred in the Second Kingdom.

Geography

Pernambuco Geography

Topographic map of Pernambuco territory

Pernambuco is one of the smallest states in the country. Despite this, it has varied landscapes: mountain ranges, plateaus, swamps, semiaridity and diverse beaches.

The state has 187 km of coastline, with increasing altitude from the coast to the hinterland. The coastal plains have an altitude of up to 200 meters, with peneplane relief (mamelonar), and some points of the Borborema Plateau exceed 1,000 m in altitude. On the west bank of the agreste, there is the Sertaneja Depression, a relative depression with an average altitude of 400 m that extends to the eastern bank of Chapada do Araripe. Pernambuco is bordered by Paraíba and Ceará to the north, Alagoas and Bahia to the south, Piauí to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. More than half of the state is in the northeastern hinterland - west and central region of Pernambuco. It is a place where rainfall is scarce, and the climate is semi-desert (semi-arid), due to the retention of part of the rainfall in the Borborema Plateau and the dry air currents from southern Africa. It is in the domain of the caatinga, with a rainy season restricted to about four months of the year, and in periodic years the rains may be below average or even above average.

Climate

The state of Pernambuco is characterized by two types of climate: the humid tropical (predominant on the coast) and the semiarid (predominant in the interior), respectively As' and BSh in the Köppen-Geiger climate classification.

It should be noted, however, that there are variations of these two climatic types in some regions: in the central-east of Pernambuco, the tropical high altitude climate (Cwa) is relatively common, especially in the Borborema Plateau and in other mountain regions with the occurrence of microclimates, areas where temperatures are milder, reaching a minimum of 10 ° C; and in the center-west of the state there are regions with climates such as the very hot semiarid (BSs'h '), areas where the t temperatures are higher, with maximum values that can exceed 40 ° C. Pernambuco has one of the largest water deficits in Brazil. In the sertão, rainfall averages vary between 400 mm and 600 mm annually. In the wild, they are between 500 mm and 900 mm. And in the forest zone, the average annual rainfall varies between 1,500 and 2,000 mm.

Hydrography

Stretch of the São Francisco River in Petrolina, in the hinterland.

Brazilwood, better known as "pau-de-pernambuco" in countries like France and Italy, was almost completely wiped out in the state, as was the Atlantic Forest (photo).

There are two hydrographic domains that divide the state of Pernambuco. The first comprises small independent hydrographic basins formed by coastal rivers that flow directly into the Atlantic Ocean, forming the basins of the Goiana, Capibaribe, Ipojuca, Beberibe, Camarajibe and Una rivers. The second domain consists of the Pernambuco portion of the São Francisco River basin, which has as small tributaries, on its left bank, the sertanejos rivers (so called because they run through the interior of the state): Moxotó, Pajeú, Ipanema and Navio do Navio.

In Pernambuco, the São Francisco is the main river, and with the exception of this and coastal rivers, all rivers in the state have temporary regimes, that is, they flow only in the rainy season.

Two Brazilian hydrographic regions cover the territory of Pernambuco: São Francisco and Atlântico Nordeste Leste.

Environment

The vegetation cover of Pernambuco is composed of perennial tropical forest, semi-deciduous and caatinga tropical forest. The tropical forest (Mata Atlântica) once covered the entire area located east of the eastern slope of the Planalto da Borborema, which is why the region has come to be called the forest zone. Currently, little remains of the primitive vegetation, which gave way to fields of culture and artificial pastures. The transition area between humid and semi-arid climates is covered by peculiar forest vegetation, where species from the Atlantic and Caatinga forests are mixed. It is the vegetation of the agreste, which also gives its name to the region. Finally, in the rest of the state, that is, inland, the caatinga dominates, characteristic of the hinterland.

Catimbau National Park

Carneiros Beach

State Law 13,787 / 09, of June 8, 2009, instituted the State System of Nature Conservation Units (SEUC). In 2015, Pernambuco had 80 State Conservation Units: 40 for Integral Protection (31 Wildlife Refugees - RVS; 5 State Parks - PE; 3 Ecological Stations - ESEC; and 1 Natural Monument - MONA) and 40 for Sustainable Use (18 Environmental Protection Areas - APA; 13 Private Natural Heritage Reserves - RPPN; 8 Urban Forest Reserves - FURB; and 1 Area of Relevant Ecological Interest - ARIE).

In Pernambuco, the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation manages 11 conservation units: two national parks, an ecological station, a national forest, three environmental protection areas, an extractive reserve and three biological reserves. The conservation units administered by the Brazilian government in Pernambuco are the Fernando de Noronha National Marine Park (in Fernando de Noronha), the Catimbau National Park (in Buíque, Ibimirim, Sertânia and Tupanatinga), the Fernando de Noronha Environmental Protection Area Noronha (in Fernando de Noronha), the Costa dos Corais Environmental Protection Area (in Barreiros, Rio Formoso, São José da Coroa Grande and Tamandaré), the Chapada do Araripe Environmental Protection Area (in Araripina, Bodocó, Cedro, Exu, Ipubi, Serrita, Moreilândia and Trindade), the Acaú-Goiana Extractive Reserve (in Goiana), the Negreiros National Forest (in Serrita), the Tapacurá Ecological Station (in São Lourenço da Mata), the Serra Negra Biological Reserve ( in Floresta, Inajá and Tacaratu), the Pedra Talhada Biological Reserve (in Lagoa do Ouro) and the Saltinho Biological Reserve (in Rio Formoso and Tamandaré).

Demography

Demography of Pernambuco

According to the 2010 demographic census carried out by the IBGE (last official count), the population of Pernambuco was 8,796,448 inhabitants, being the seventh most populous state in Brazil, representing 4.7% of the Brazilian population. Of these, 4 230 681 inhabitants were men and 4,565 767 inhabitants were women. According to the same census, 7 052 210 inhabitants lived in the urban area and 1 744 238 in the rural area. The largest urban agglomeration in the state is the Urban Concentration of Recife, which in addition to the capital has 14 more municipalities, and with 3 741 904 registered inhabitants, in 2010 it was the fourth most populous urban concentration in Brazil, and the most populous in the North- Northeast. Pernambuco's population density was 89.47 inhab./km² in 2010, the sixth largest in Brazil. This indicator, however, showed pronounced contrasts according to the region analyzed, ranging from 1 342.86 inhab./km² in the Metropolitan Region of Recife, to the minimum value of 23.2 inhab./km² in the extinct Mesoregion of São Francisco Pernambucano.

According to data from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the state's Human Development Index (HDI-M), considered high, was 0.727 in 2017. The municipality with the highest HDI was Fernando de Noronha (actually one district), with a value of 0.788 in 2010; while Manari, located in the extreme Sertão do Moxotó, had the lowest value, 0.477. Recife, the capital, had an HDI of 0.772. The level of social development in Pernambuco is higher than in the least advanced countries, but it is still below the Brazilian average. Nevertheless, Pernambuco has the best sewage collection service in the North, Northeast and South of Brazil and the fifth largest number of doctors per group of 1,000 inhabitants in Brazil, in addition to having the lowest infant mortality rate, the best prevalence of food security and the highest per capita income in the Northeast of the country.

Most populous municipalities:

Racial composition

Immigration in Pernambuco

According to data published by the IBGE, for the year 2009, the population of Pernambuco is composed of: Pardos (multiracial) (57.6%); White (36.6%); Black (5.4%); and Yellow and Indigenous (0.3%) According to a genetic study from 2013, the genetic composition of the population of Pernambuco is 56.8% European, 27.9% African and 15.3% Amerindian.

Indigenous

The presence of indigenous people in Pernambuco dates back more than 10,000 years. Rock paintings are found in several areas of the hinterland and the countryside of the state, the best known being those of the Vale do Catimbau in the municipality of Buíque, in the countryside of Pernambuco. According to FUNAI data, Pernambuco currently has about 40 thousand Indians.

Africans

It was in the Captaincy of Pernambuco, between the years 1539 and 1542, that the first black slaves arrived from Colonial Brazil, to work in the culture of cane and in the manufacture of sugar.

The Church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos de Olinda was the first church in Brazil belonging to a black brotherhood. Portuguese National Style Carving of the Golden Chapel, in Recife.

The Murillo La Greca Museum, in Recife, was created in honor of the Pernambuco painter Murillo La Greca, son of Italian immigrants.

Deutscher Klub Pernambuco

Derby Headquarters, former Mercado Modelo Coelho Cintra, built where an English racetrack used to work.

Old Rua dos Judeus in Recife, 1855.

The number of captives of African origin has grown considerably since then. In 1584, 15,000 slaves worked on at least 50 mills. This number rose to 20 thousand slaves in 1600. In the middle of the 17th century, the slave population totaled between 33 and 50 thousand people. Pernambuco was one of the regions that received the most African slaves in Brazil. During the slave trade, 824,312 Africans, 17% of all slaves brought to Brazil, entered the Pernambuco coast. Of the Africans in the state, 79% were from Central West Africa. Currently, the countries of Angola, Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo are located in that region.

Portuguese

In addition to the entire genetic, architectural, musical and dialectical legacy, Portugal is present, in Pernambuco, with the Clube Português do Recife, the Real Hospital Português and the Gabinete Português de Leitura. The appearance of traditional roller hockey in Pernambuco, in the 1950s, for example, is a consequence of Portuguese immigration. The Portuguese also participated in the settlement of the São Francisco regions and the Pernambuco hinterland, acquiring land for extensive cattle raising.

Spanish

In the early days of colonization, with the Portuguese, the Spanish were present. Between the last decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Recife also received immigrants from Spain.

Italians

The Italian presence in Pernambuco dates back to the 16th century. The plantation master Filippo Cavalcanti, a nobleman from the city of Florence, married Catarina de Albuquerque, daughter of Governor Jerônimo de Albuquerque, with the Indian Maria do Espírito Santo Arcoverde, giving rise to the Cavalcantis clan (or Cavalcantes, in the variant aportuguesada), recognized as the largest family in Brazil. Filippo and Catarina's marriage defined one of the genetic patterns of families in the country, whereby 90% of Brazilians have European genes on their father's side and 60%, Amerindian or African genes on their mother's side. Italian immigration to the state between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, small, was concentrated along the coast and in the capital, with Italians coming mainly from the provinces of Cosenza, Salerno and Potenza. There are currently a significant number of Italian descendants in the state: around 200,000.

Dutchmen

There are many myths about the genetic inheritance left by the Dutch during their rule in Pernambuco. Culturally, the golden-haired inhabitants of the state are considered to be of Dutch descent, but most of them, in fact, descend from northern Portuguese, which is why they are still called "Galicians" today, a reference to the Kingdom of Galicia. However, in the year 2000, the Federal University of Minas Gerais collected DNA samples from 50 natural individuals from the state for analysis - during the study "Molecular Portrait of Brazil" - and in the result it was verified that these people had on average 19% of haplogroup 2 genes, very common in the Netherlands and Germany. It should be noted that this percentage was the second highest found in Brazil, just after the South region, with 28%, and even higher than the average found in Portugal, which was 13%. There is still other evidence that the Dutch, although they left mostly after the Pernambucan Insurrection, left descendants in Brazil. An example is the Buarque de Hollanda family, who descended from the cavalry captain of the troops of the Netherlands Gaspar Nieuhoff Van Der Ley, and which includes, among other personalities, the singer and composer Chico Buarque, grandson of the Pernambuco pharmacist Cristóvão Buarque de Hollanda. Gaspar Van Der Ley married Maria Gomes de Mello and moved to the north coast of Pernambuco between 1630 and 1640.

Germans

The first records of Germans date from the 17th century, with the arrival of the Dutch in the state. The two world wars boosted the German colony in Recife, which had more than 1,200 immigrants. This presence can be seen in the Deutscher Klub Pernambuco, founded in 1920, and which previously was restricted to the German colony and its descendants.

English

At the beginning of the 19th century, when the prince regent Dom João VI opened the country's ports, the English began to arrive in Brazil - especially Recife, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador. At that time, the city of Recife had approximately 200 thousand inhabitants, and the English colony was already quite expressive. The British Cemetery and the Anglican Chapel date from the period.

Jews

Judaism has been present in Pernambuco since the 16th century. Sephardic Jews converted to Christianity were considered New Christians, many of whom were planters. However, there was a suspicion of a hidden practice of the Jewish religion. They obtained freedom to profess their religion in the times of Maurício de Nassau, which was soon fought when the Portuguese returned to the domain of the sugar economy. Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, a second community was established in the city of Recife, composed mostly of Jews of Ashkenazi origin from countries such as Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Austria and Germany. Some members of the Ashkenazi community in Pernambuco became notorious, such as Mário Schenberg, Leopoldo Nachbin, Paulo Ribenboim, Aron Simis, Israel Vainsencher, Clarice Lispector, Leôncio Basbaum, Noel Nutels, among others.

Arabs

In Recife, one of the hallmarks of Arab immigrants is the Lebanon Brazilian Club, built by the Lebanese colony in the Pina neighborhood. The first Arab contact with Pernambuco, however, was made with Syrian Catholic missionaries who arrived in Portuguese caravans. The state is also home to the second largest Palestinian community in Brazil, concentrated in the city of Recife, which started receiving the first immigrants in 1903. Today the community has about 5,000 people.

Sparrow

Miscegenation has occurred in Pernambuco since the beginning of colonization. An emblematic case is that of Jerônimo de Albuquerque, who earned the nickname among Brazilian historians "Adão Pernambucano". Jerônimo arrived at the Captaincy of Pernambuco in 1535 with his sister, Brites de Albuquerque, and her husband, the captain-donatory Duarte Coelho, and soon started a series of unions with indigenous women - marrying, for example, with Princess Muyrã Ubi (baptized with the Christian name of Maria do Espírito Santo Arcoverde), in the Tabajara ritual -, which helped to seal the peace between Europeans and native peoples. He also had children with Felipa de Mello, with whom he later married according to the laws of the Church at the request of Queen Catherine of Portugal, and, it is suspected, with the African women who were beginning to arrive in the colony. It is unclear how many children he left, but 36 were recognized, including notorious names like Jerônimo de Albuquerque Maranhão, hero of the conquest of Maranhão and founder of the city of Natal in Rio Grande do Norte.

Religion

Petrolina Cathedral, built in neo-Gothic style.

Synagogue Kahal Zur Israel, the oldest synagogue in America.

Candomblé shed in Pernambuco.

According to IBGE 2010 census data, 5 834 601 inhabitants were Catholics (66.33%), of which 5 801 397 Roman Apostolic Catholics (65.95%), 26 526 Brazilian Apostolic Catholics (0.30% ) and 6 678 Orthodox Catholics (0.08%); 1 788 973 evangelicals (20.34%), 1 102 485 of Pentecostal origin (12.53%), 376 880 of mission (4.28%) and 309 608 not determined (3.52%); 123 798 spiritists (1.41%); and 43,726 Jehovah's Witnesses (0.50%). Another 914 954 had no religion (10.40%), which 10 284 atheists (0.12%) and 5 638 agnostics (0.06%); 80 591 followed other religions (0.90%); and 9 805 did not know or did not declare (0.12%).

Christianity

The traditional schools in Pernambuco are mostly Catholic, such as Colégio Damas da Instrução Cristã, Colégio Marista São Luís and Liceu Nóbrega de Artes e Oficinas. The largest, oldest, most well-known and most visited temples by tourists are from the Catholic Church, such as the Basilica do Carmo, the Basilica of São Bento, the Mother Church of the Blessed Sacrament of Santo Antônio, the São Pedro dos Clérigos Cathedral, the Golden Chapel, the Church of Carmo de Olinda, the Church of Nossa Senhora das Neves, the Cathedral Sé de Olinda, the Church of Santos Cosme and Damião, the Church of Madre de Deus, the Church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos de Olinda and that of Recife, the Basilica of Penha, the Basilica Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora Auxiliadora, the Church of Nossa Senhora dos Prazeres dos Montes Guararapes, among others, which is a sign that Roman Catholicism is the most professed religion among the from Pernambuco. The Catholic Church in Pernambuco is administratively divided into an archdiocese and nine dioceses: the archdiocese of Olinda and Recife, currently commanded by archbishop Dom Antônio Fernando Saburido, and the dioceses of Afogados da Ingazeira, Caruaru, Floresta, Garanhuns, Nazaré, Palmares, Pesqueira, Petrolina and Willow. Pernambuco is the federative unit of the Northeast Region with the highest concentration of evangelicals, both in absolute numbers and in proportional terms. 20.34% of the state's population, which corresponds to more than 1.78 million people from Pernambuco, declares themselves Protestant according to the 2010 IBGE census, a percentage much higher than the percentages found in the other northeastern states. Pernambuco has the most diverse Protestant denominations, such as the Assembly of God, a Protestant church with the largest number of believers and temples in the state. Other Pentecostal and Neopentecostal denominations present in Pernambuco are, among many: Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Christian Congregation in Brazil, Casa da Bença Church, Deus é Amor Church, Foursquare Gospel Church, O Brasil Para Cristo Church, Maranata Church and Church New life. Among the traditional evangelical denominations, temples in the state include Baptist-oriented churches, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Lutheran Church, the Anglican Church, the Methodist Church and the Congregational Church.

Other religions

Among non-Catholic and non-Protestant Christians, there are Spiritists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Latter-day Saints. The best known Afro-Brazilian temple is the Terreiro do Pai Adão, in Recife. Jews are also present. Some of the Jewish personalities who lived in the capital of Pernambuco were the writer Clarice Lispector, the philosopher Luiz Felipe Pondé, the engineer Mário Schenberg, the landscaper Roberto Burle Marx, among others. Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims have no relevance to the state's population.

Government and politics

Politics of Pernambuco

List of governors of Pernambuco

The state of Pernambuco is governed by three powers: the Executive, represented by the State Governor; the Legislative, represented by the Legislative Assembly of Pernambuco; and the Judiciary, represented by the Pernambuco State Court of Justice. Popular participation in government decisions through referenda and referendums is also allowed. The current constitution of the state of Pernambuco was enacted on October 5, 1989, in addition to the changes resulting from subsequent constitutional amendments. The Pernambuco Executive Power is centralized in the State Governor, who is elected by universal suffrage and direct and secret vote, by the population, for a four-year term, and can be re-elected for another term for the same period. Its headquarters is the Campo das Princesas Palace, built in 1841 by the engineer Morais Âncora at the behest of the then governor Francisco do Rego Barros. Several politicians have passed through the Government of Pernambuco, the most recent of which is Paulo Henrique Saraiva Câmara, a Recife-based economist graduated from the Federal University of Pernambuco. In addition to the governor, there is also the vice-governor function in the state, currently exercised by Luciana Santos. The Legislative Power of Pernambuco is unicameral, constituted by the Legislative Assembly of Pernambuco, located in the district of Boa Vista, in the city of Recife. It is made up of 49 deputies, who are elected every four years. In the National Congress, the Pernambuco representation is made up of three senators and 25 federal deputies.

The Judiciary is exercised by the judges and has the capacity and the prerogative to judge, according to the constitutional rules and laws created by the Legislative Power. Currently, the presidency of the Court of Justice of Pernambuco is exercised by the judge Leopoldo de Arruda Raposo. Representations of this power are spread across the state through counties.

Campo das Princesas Palace, seat of the Pernambuco executive power.

Pernambuco Legislative Assembly, seat of Pernambuco's Legislative power.

Pernambuco Court of Justice, seat of the state Judiciary.

Political-administrative division

List of intermediary and immediate geographical regions of Pernambuco, List of municipalities in Pernambuco and List of municipalities in Pernambuco by population

Pernambuco is separated into geographical subdivisions called intermediate geographical regions and immediate geographical regions, and administrative subdivisions called municipalities. The intermediate geographic regions were presented in 2017, with the update of the regional division of Brazil, and correspond to a revision of the old mesoregions, which were in force since the division of 1989. The immediate geographic regions, in turn, replaced the micro-regions. The 2017 division aimed to cover the transformations related to the urban network and its hierarchy that occurred since the past divisions, and should be used for public policy planning and management actions and for the dissemination of IBGE statistics and studies. The intermediate geographic regions comprise the major regions of the state, which bring together several municipalities in a geographical area. Created by IBGE, this division system has important applications in the elaboration of public policies and in subsidizing the system of decisions regarding the location of socioeconomic activities. The four intermediate geographic regions of the state are: the Intermediate Geographic Region of Recife; the Intermediate Geographic Region of Caruaru; the Serra Talhada Intermediate Geographic Region; and the Petrolina Intermediate Geographic Region. These intermediate regions are, in turn, subdivided into immediate geographical regions.

Pernambuco has 18 immediate geographic regions: Recife, Goiana-Timbaúba, Palmares, Limoeiro, Vitória de Santo Antão, Carpina, Barreiros-Sirinhaém, Surubim, Escada-Ribeirão, Caruaru, Garanhuns, Arcoverde, Belo Jardim-Pesqueira, Serra Talhada, Afogados da Ingazeira, Salgueiro, Petrolina and Araripina. Finally, there are the municipalities, which are territorial districts that have relative autonomy and concentrate a local political power, whose system works with two powers, the Executive being the City Hall and the Legislative the City Council. In total, Pernambuco is divided into 185 municipalities, making it the eleventh unit of the federation with the largest number of municipalities. Some of these municipalities form conurbations. There is officially a metropolitan region in Pernambuco, that of Recife, and an integrated region of economic development, Polo Petrolina and Juazeiro.

economy

Economy of Pernambuco

Export products from Pernambuco in 2015.

At the time of Colonial Brazil, Pernambuco was the richest of the captaincies, and responsible for more than half of Brazilian sugar exports. Its wealth was the target of interest from other nations and, in the 17th century, the Dutch settled in the state. Sugarcane remains the main agricultural product in the Pernambuco forest area, although the state is no longer the largest producer in the country. Despite the decline in sugar, Pernambuco remained among the five largest state economies in the country until the mid-1940s: in 1907, the state had the fourth largest industrial production in Brazil, after Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul and ahead of states like Minas Gerais and Paraná; and in 1939, Pernambuco was still the fifth largest economy among the Brazilian states, after São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul. After being stagnant during the so-called "lost decade" (1985 to 1995), the The state is witnessing an important change in its economic profile, with investments in the naval, automobile, petrochemical, biotechnological, pharmaceutical and information technology sectors, which are giving new impetus to its economy, which has been growing above the national average.

In 2017, the state recorded a nominal GDP of R $ 181.551 billion, the tenth largest in the country, with a 2.8% share of Brazilian GDP. In the same year, it registered a nominal GDP per capita of 19,164.52 reais, the highest in the Brazilian Northeast.

The main enterprise of the Pernambuco naval industry is Estaleiro Atlântico Sul, the largest shipyard in the Southern Hemisphere.

Pernambuco is currently the largest producer of acerola and guava, the second largest producer of grapes, the third largest producer of mango and coconut, the third largest floriculture hub and the seventh largest producer of sugarcane in Brazil. Pernambuco is still the fourth largest national egg producer, the sixth broiler and the eighth largest dairy basin in the country.

Pernambuco's industrial production is among the largest in the North-Northeast. The naval, automobile, chemical, metallurgical, flat glass, electronics, electronics, of non-metallic minerals, textiles and food. Currently, the Suape Industrial and Port Complex, located in the area of the homonymous port, Recife Metropolitan Region, is the main industrial pole of Pernambuco.

The state capital is home to Porto Digital, recognized as the largest technology park in Brazil, with more than 200 companies, including multinationals such as Accenture, Oracle, ThoughtWorks, Ogilvy, IBM and Microsoft, employing around six thousand people and accounting for 3 , 9% of Pernambuco's GDP. The Recife Medical Center, considered the second largest in the country, serves patients from Brazil and abroad. Foreigners who go to Recife in search of medical care, mostly African and North American, aim for quality services and affordable prices.

Tourism

Pernambuco Tourism

Porto de Galinhas was elected the Best Beach in Brazil for ten consecutive times - according to the magazine Viagem e Turismo.

Cine Teatro Guarany, in the mountain town of Triunfo, located at 1,004 meters of altitude, in the hinterland. Tourism in Pernambuco offers several historical, natural and cultural attractions. The main tourist locations in the state are: Fernando de Noronha, Ipojuca, Tamandaré, Cabo de Santo Agostinho and Itamaracá (Sol and Praia); Bonito, Bezerros and Petrolina (Ecotourism and Adventure); Buíque (Archeological); Garanhuns, Gravatá and Triunfo (Serrano); Olinda, Igarassu, Jaboatão dos Guararapes and Caruaru (Cultural); Vicência, Moreno, Carpina, Goiana and Nazaré da Mata (Rural); and Recife (Cultural, Sun and Beach, Business and Health). According to the survey "Habits of Consumption of Brazilian Tourism 2009", carried out by Vox Populi, Pernambuco was the second preferred tourist destination for potential Brazilian customers, since 11.9% of tourists opted for the state in the categories surveyed; and according to the International Congress And Convention Association (ICCA), Pernambuco was the third largest hub of international events in Brazil in 2011.

The coast of Pernambuco is about 187 km long, between beaches and cliffs, urban areas and practically untouched places. It borders the north with Paraíba and the south with Alagoas. In addition to the continental coast, the state has the archipelago of Fernando de Noronha and its 16 beaches.

On the south coast, the most popular beaches are, among others, Porto de Galinhas, Carneiros, Serrambi, Maracaípe, Muro Alto, Calhetas, Paiva and Santo Aleixo Island.

The tourist attractions of the north coast are also very relevant. The most popular beaches are Ilha de Itamaracá, Ilha do Coroa do Avião and Praia de Maria Farinha, the latter known for hosting the Veneza Water Park, one of the largest water parks in Brazil. Colonial period buildings such as Forte Orange on Itamaracá Island and the Church of Santos Cosme and Damião (oldest church in Brazil according to IPHAN) in Igarassu are also very visited by tourists who pass through the region.

Fernando de Noronha is one of the best known national destinations abroad. Some of its main attractions are Baía do Sancho - voted the best beach in the world by users of the TripAdvisor travel site - Baía dos Porcos, Baía dos Golfinhos, Morro Dois Irmãos, Fort Nossa Senhora dos Remédios de Fernando de Noronha and Vila dos Remédios. The islands are very popular for diving, and the only place in the Atlantic Ocean where you can see groups of spinner dolphins. The archipelago has been declared a Natural Heritage Site by UNESCO.

The Borborema Plateau and the swamps of altitude are options for those looking for a mild climate. Mountainous cities in the interior of Pernambuco such as Garanhuns, Triunfo and Gravatá attract thousands of visitors. The Garanhuns Winter Festival (FIG), created in 1991, features a marathon of national and international attractions of musical styles such as rock, MPB, blues, jazz, forró and instrumental music in the city's squares and parks.

Fernando de Noronha, Pernambuco archipelago declared Natural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. In the photo, the Bay of Pigs.

Infrastructure

Cheers

The former Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Olinda (center of the image) was the first hospital in Brazil.

Real Hospital Português, the largest hospital complex in the North-Northeast.

Pernambuco has a long tradition in the field of medicine. It was in the state that the first hospital in Brazil emerged: the Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Olinda, founded in the year 1540 and extinguished in 1860 with the creation of the Santa Casa de Misericórdia in Recife. And it was in Recife that the country's first cesarean operation was carried out, in 1817, at the hands of Pernambuco doctor Correia Picanço - founder of the first medical schools in Brazil and acclaimed "Patriarch of Brazilian Medicine".

In 2009, there were 4,149 hospital establishments in Pernambuco, with 19,204 beds. Some of the main hospitals in the state are Real Hospital Português, IMIP, Hospital da Restauração, Hospital Getúlio Vargas, Hospital Agam enon Magalhães, the Hospital das Clínicas of the Federal University of Pernambuco, the Ulysses Pernambucano Hospital, the Barão de Lucena Hospital, the Oswaldo Cruz University Hospital and the Pernambuco University Cardiology Emergency Room. The Hospital da Restauração is the largest public emergency and the most complex emergency and trauma service in the North-Northeast, receiving patients from all over the state and neighboring states. Reference in the areas of trauma, neurosurgery, neurology, general surgery, medical clinic and orthopedics, they have 704 beds registered with the Ministry of Health (MS) to meet the demand submitted to them. In June 2010, the former General Emergency was divided into three emergencies with independent entrances and spaces: Pediatric Emergency, Traumatological Emergency and Clinical Emergency. Pernambuco houses one of the three leather banks in Brazil, the other two being located in São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul.

In 2013, the state had the fifth largest number of doctors per group of 1,000 inhabitants in Brazil, and its capital, Recife, the second largest number of doctors per group of 1,000 inhabitants in the country - according to the Federal Council of Medicine.

Education

List of higher education institutions in Pernambuco

The main educational facilities in Pernambuco are concentrated in the capital.

The Faculty of Law of Recife is the oldest law school in Brazil alongside the law course at the University of São Paulo (USP).

The Federal University of Pernambuco, the main higher education institution in the state, was classified in 2013 by QS World University Rankings as the best university in the North-Northeast and the 8th best Brazilian federal university, as well as the 15th best university in the country, having occupied the 43rd position among Latin American institutions; and although it was surpassed by UFPR in relation to the previous year, it remains ahead of institutions such as UFSC and UFBA. UFPE is also the best university in the North-Northeast according to the University Ranking Folha 2012, in addition to being the only university in these two regions among the ten best in the country.

Pernambuco has its main colleges and universities founded in the 19th century, and some stand out nationally. The centennial Faculty of Law of Recife, born from the transfer of the Faculty of Law of Olinda and today linked to UFPE, was the first higher law course in Brazil, together with the São Paulo course, still under Dom Pedro I. important names in Brazilian history studied, highlighting exponents such as Barão do Rio Branco, Castro Alves, Clóvis Beviláqua, Tobias Barreto, Ruy Barbosa, Joaquim Nabuco, Eusébio de Queirós, Teixeira de Freitas, Raul Pompeia, Nilo Peçanha, Augusto dos Anjos, Epitácio Pessoa , Assis Chateaubriand, José Lins do Rego, Graça Aranha, Pontes de Miranda, among countless others. Even today, the celebrated Faculty of Law in Recife, honoring its tradition, is a center of excellence in the teaching of law, being, both at undergraduate and graduate levels, among the five best legal courses in Brazil, according to OAB and the MEC.

In addition to the Federal University of Pernambuco, other important higher education institutions located in the state are: the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE), founded in 1912 as the Escola Superior de Agricultura; the University of Pernambuco, formerly FESP, a public state university with campuses in several cities in the interior of the state; and the Federal University of Vale do São Francisco, the first federal university established in the northeastern hinterland.

Pernambuco stands out in technological education. The Computer Center of the Federal University of Pernambuco (CIn UFPE), responsible for the courses in Computer Science, Information Systems and Computer Engineering, is a major supplier of specialized labor in technology to Microsoft. And the state also has outstanding high school institutions: the UFPE Application College was elected the best public school in Brazil three times.

Transportation

Multimodal map. Pernambuco has the largest extension of duplicated highways in the North-Northeast. The Port of Suape was elected the best port in Brazil in 2010.

Recife-Guararapes International Airport is the largest and busiest airport complex in the Northeast and North of the country.

Pernambuco was the second state in Brazil to have a railroad, four years after Rio de Janeiro. It is the first section, of 31 km, of The Recife and São Francisco Railway Company, inaugurated in 1858, being the largest in the country that year and the first managed by a foreign company. Less than a decade later, Recife became the first city in the world to operate steam locomotives built especially to run on the streets. The system, known as "maxambomba" (from the English machine pump), had locomotives built by Manning Wardle & Co., and was inaugurated in 1867. Before, the canoes they were the main means of transporting people and cargo in the capital of Pernambuco, and for the more affluent, horses and carriages. The maxambomba itinerary reached 22 kilometers in length and 20 stations, until in 1919 it was replaced by electric trams. In 1930, Recife became the first city in South America with a direct (non-stop) connection to Europe, especially to Germany, through airships. The capital of Pernambuco today has the only airship docking station in the world preserved in its original structure, the Torre do Zeppelin.

Currently, the state has coverage for all types of transport: air, rail, water and road.

Infraero manages two airports in Pernambuco. Recife-Guararapes International Airport is the largest and busiest airport complex in the North-Northeast, with capacity for 16.5 million passengers per year, and one of the most modern airports in Brazil. And the Petrolina International Airport has the second largest airstrip in the Northeast, which makes it possible to operate large cargo planes for the export of fruits produced in the São Francisco Valley.

The state also has two seaports: Suape, located in the municipality of Ipojuca; and Recife, one of the oldest in Brazil, which many scholars claim to have started the city of Recife. It also has a river port in Petrolina. The Port of Suape, the most important port in Pernambuco, is one of the largest in Brazil, and operates ships 365 days a year, without restrictions on tide times, and has a laser ship mooring monitoring system that allows a effective and safe control, offering technical conditions in the standards of the most important ports in the world.

Pernambuco's road network consists of fourteen federal highways, seventy-four state highways and municipal highways. The most important are the BR-101, which, advancing along the coast of the state, connects north to south - the section of Pernambuco is completely duplicated -, passing through Greater Recife; and the BR-232, which connects the capital to the interior of the state in an east-west direction - with a 237 km stretch duplicated (Recife to São Caetano) -, passing through important cities such as Vitória de Santo Antão, Gravatá, Caruaru, Belo Jardim , Pesqueira, Arcoverde, Serra Talhada and Salgueiro. The Salgueiro-Petrolina connection is made by the BR-116, BR-316 and BR-428 highways. Pernambuco has the largest duplicated road network in the North-Northeast according to the CNT Transport Yearbook 2016, with 462.8 km of double-lane highways in 2015.

Transnordestina, with a length of 1,752 km, is the main railway project in progress in the state, and intends to connect the city of Eliseu Martins (in Piauí) to the Port of Suape and the Port of Pecém (in Ceará). The Recife Metro, the first subway system in the North-Northeast, was opened in March 1985, with the Werneck-Centro line. It is operated by CBTU, and carries around 400 thousand passengers per day.

Media

Rede Globo Nordeste, headquartered in the state, is Globo's only broadcaster in the North-Northeast.

Newspapers were the state's first mass media. Aurora Pernambucana was the first newspaper in Pernambuco and the third published in Brazil. Issue No. 1 circulated on March 27, 1821, in a 25 x 17 cm format, with four pages, on linen paper and printed at the Oficina do Trem Nacional de Pernambuco, in Recife.

Pernambuco has three major newspapers: Diario de Pernambuco (oldest newspaper in circulation in Latin America); the Jornal do Commercio; and Folha de Pernambuco. The first radio station appeared in the late 1910s. Rádio Clube de Pernambuco is the oldest radio station in Brazil: it held its first radio broadcast from an improvised studio in Ponte d'Uchoa, in Recife, on 6 April 1919, led by the radiographer Antônio Joaquim Pereira. Pernambuco has several television generators, affiliates and retransmitters. Some of the broadcasters - branches and affiliates - present in the state are: TV Globo Nordeste (Globo - Recife); TV Asa Branca (Globo - Caruaru); TV Grande Rio (Globo - Petrolina); TV Clube (RecordTV - Recife); TV Jornal Interior (SBT - Caruaru); TV Jornal (SBT - Recife); TV Tribuna (Band - Recife); and TV Pernambuco (TV Brasil - Caruaru / Recife).

Science and technology

Porto Digital, located in the Recife Antigo neighborhood in the state capital, is the largest technological park in Brazil and a world reference in the production of software.

In 1895 the Escola de Engenharia de Pernambuco was created, the first engineering school outside the Southeast region. In it, which soon became one of the main scientific institutions in the country, a wave of great Brazilian scientists appeared, such as Mário Schenberg, José Leite Lopes and Leopoldo Nachbin, thanks to the catalytic action of Professor Luís Freire, known for actively participating in movements in favor of creation schools capable of training researchers in mathematics and physics. Recognized as the birthplace of outstanding scientists and notorious names in the exact sciences, Pernambuco also gave rise to names such as Paulo Ribenboim, Aron Simis, Samuel MacDowell, Gauss Moutinho Cordeiro, Israel Vainsencher, Josué de Castro, Joaquim Cardozo, Norberto Odebrecht, Cristovam Buarque, Fernando de Souza Barros, Ricardo de Carvalho Ferreira, Leandro do Santíssimo Sacramento, José Tibúrcio Pereira Magalhães, Edson Mororó Moura, Fernando Antonio Figueiredo Cardoso da Silva, Antônio de Queiroz Galvão, João Santos, among many others.

Following its tradition in the exact sciences, Pernambuco is currently one of the most outstanding Brazilian states in the area of information technology. Porto Digital, an IT business environment created in 2000 in the historic center of Recife, is recognized by A.T. Kearney as the largest technological park in Brazil in terms of revenue and number of companies. Due to its relevance in the sector, the capital of Pernambuco is the only Brazilian city with the exception of São Paulo that hosts editions of the Campus Party technology event.

The state also stands out in technological education. The Computer Center of the Federal University of Pernambuco (CIn-UFPE), considered one of the main academic centers in computer science in Latin America and responsible for the courses in Computer Science, Information Systems and Computer Engineering, is a large supplier of labor specialized in technology for Porto Digital and for several multinationals in the technology sector. The Federal University of Pernambuco was one of five educational institutions selected worldwide for Microsoft's worldwide research program, which allowed its access to the source code of Visual Studio components. The other four selected universities were Yale University - United States; Monash University - Australia; the University of Hull - England; besides UNESP, Brazil being the only country that had two chosen universities.

Pernambuco has two Federal Institutes of Education, Science and Technology: the Federal Institute of Pernambuco and the Federal Institute of Sertão Pernambucano.

Culture

Culture of Pernambuco

Literature

It was in Pernambuco that the first poem of Brazilian literature appeared: Prosopopeia, by Bento Teixeira. The work tells in an epic style, inspired by Camões, the exploits of the Albuquerque family, having been dedicated to the then governor of Pernambuco, Jorge de Albuquerque Coelho. Prosopopeia was published in the year 1601.

Another landmark in Pernambuco literature is the book Historia Naturalis Brasiliae, the first treatise on natural history in Brazil, written by the Dutch physician and naturalist Guilherme Piso, who conceived it through the observation of the zoobotanical garden of the Friborg Palace, residence of Maurício de Nassau in Recife during Dutch rule.

Two hundred and fifty years after Historia Naturalis Brasiliae, Pernambuco abolitionist Joaquim Nabuco was completing My Formation, a classic work of Brazilian literature. Years later, in the Modern Art Week, the poem Os Sapos by the Recife native Manuel Bandeira is read, considered to be the movement's wing.

Pernambuco literatures are many. Some of them: João Cabral de Melo Neto, Manuel Bandeira, Nelson Rodrigues, Joaquim Nabuco, Clarice Lispector, Paulo Freire, Gilberto Freyre, Joaquim Cardozo, Josué de Castro, Álvaro Lins, Marcos Vilaça, Martins Júnior, Mauro Mota, Mário Pedrosa, Manuel de Oliveira Lima, Barbosa Lima Sobrinho, Osman Lins, Dantas Barreto, Geraldo Holanda Cavalcanti, Evaldo Cabral de Mello, Evanildo Bechara, Olegário Mariano, João Carneiro de Sousa Bandeira, Adelmar Tavares, among many others. Clarice Lispector, Ukrainian naturalized Brazilian and one of the biggest names in national literature, declared herself to be from Pernambuco for having lived most of her childhood and adolescence in Recife.

Other artistic and cultural events

Capoeira is considered to have appeared in Quilombo dos Palmares, in the then Captaincy of Pernambuco. Frevo, declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Maracatu, the oldest Afro-Brazilian rhythm.

Nova Jerusalem, located in the countryside of Pernambuco, is the largest open-air theater in the world.

Pernambuco's cinematographic production is highly respected by critics, and record holder of awards at several film festivals.

Carnival in Olinda. The Recife – Olinda Carnival is considered the most democratic and culturally diverse in the country.

Folklore and music genres

Several folkloric manifestations have appeared in Pernambuco over the years. The frevo, one of the main ones, is a symbol of the Recife – Olinda Carnival, and is characterized by the fast musical rhythm and dance steps that resemble capoeira. This genre has already revealed and influenced great Brazilian musicians. Before the creation of axé music in the 1980s, frevo was also used in Salvador's Carnival. In royal ceremony Located in the city of Paris, France, in 2012, UNESCO announced that, with unanimous approval by voters, the frevo was elected Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Maracatu Nação, also known as "Maracatu de Baque Virado", is a cultural manifestation of traditional Afro-Brazilian Pernambuco music. It is formed by a percussive musical ensemble that accompanies a royal procession. The groups present a show full of symbols and marked by aesthetic richness and musicality. The moment of greatest prominence consists of taking to the streets for parades and presentations during the carnival period.

Maracatu Rural, also referred to as "Maracatu de Baque Solto", is another cultural manifestation of Pernambuco, in which the well-known "caboclos deauga" appear. It is distinguished from Maracatu Nação in organization, characters and rhythm. Maracatu "Cambinda Brasileira" is the oldest active in the country. Maracatu Rural means something more than a game for its members: it is a secular heritage, a source of great pride and admiration. The procession of Maracatu Rural differs from other maracatus due to its own musical characteristics and the essence of its origin reflected in the syncretism of its characters.

Baião, a genre of music and dance, had the greatest exponent of Pernambuco, Luiz Gonzaga. The rhythm, along with others like the xote, is part of the so-called forró. Xaxado, a typical dance from the Pernambuco backlands, is exclusively male and was disseminated in a vast area of the northeastern interior by the cangaceiro Lampião and the members of his band. Also very common in Pernambuco are the Bands of Pífanos, as well as other music and dances from the state, such as Coco, Ciranda, Cavalo-Marinho, Caboclinhos, Pastoril, Embolada, among other events.

In the 1990s, Manguebeat appeared in Pernambuco, a counterculture movement that mixes regional rhythms, such as maracatu, with rock, hip hop, funk and electronic music.

theater

Every year, in the weeks leading up to Easter, there is a show of the Passion of Christ of Nova Jerusalem in Fazenda Nova, district of Brejo da Madre de Deus, a municipality in the countryside of Pernambuco. The event is recognized as the largest open-air theater in the world. The city-theater of Nova Jerusalem impresses with its architecture: the building is a replica of the sacred Judea, with artificial lakes, nine stages, a 3,500 m wall and 70 towers. Several successful actors and actresses from Rede Globo have performed in Nova Jerusalem. The Passion of Christ has existed since 1951, as a theatrical spectacle.

Pernambuco gave rise to Mamulengo, the name given to the Brazilian puppet theater, considered one of the richest popular shows in the country. It is a representation of dramas through puppets, on a small raised stage covered by an empanada, behind which are the people who give life and voice to the characters. Glória do Goitá, a municipality in the Pernambuco forest zone, holds the title of "cradle of the mamulengo".

visual arts

Cinema of Pernambuco

Pernambuco's cinema started in 1922, when the goldsmith Edson Chagas and the engraver Gentil Roiz got together for the purpose of producing plot films. Hence, the film "Retribuition" appears, which premiered in 1923 with great success in the cinemas of Recife and which is considered the first plot film made in the Northeast - previously there were only a few experiences with documentaries. The local film production has received numerous national and international awards and is a record holder for nominations and awards in several festival editions. Films by Pernambuco filmmakers and screenwriters such as the dramas Baile Perfumado (1996), Amarelo Manga (2002), Cinema, Aspirinas e Urubus (2005), O Som ao Redor (2013), Serra Pelada (2013), Aquarius (2016), or even novels and comedies like O Auto da Compadecida (1999), Caramuru - The Invention of Brazil (2001), Lisbela and the Prisoner (2003), A Máquina (2005), Stay With Me Tonight (2006), O Bem Amado (2010) ), among many other productions, reached great projection.

Pernambuco also excels in visual arts and design. The names of the state are Romero Britto, Tunga, Francisco Brennand, Marianne Peretti, Cícero Dias, Vicente do Rego Monteiro, Mestre Vitalino, Aloísio Magalhães, Andree Guittcis, Telles Júnior, Abelardo da Hora, Murillo La Greca, Corbiniano Lins, Reynaldo Fonseca, J. Borges, Eudes Mota, Gilvan Samico, Lula Cardoso Ayres, Paulo Bruscky, Galo de Souza, among many others. The renowned artist Vik Muniz is the son of parents from Pernambuco.

Festivities

Recife Carnival is a multifaceted carnival, with different forms of street carnival, parades of carnival associations and presentations by singers and musical groups on specific platforms. Recife has the largest carnival block in the world, Galo da Madrugada, which is held on the Saturday of Carnival, or "Saturday of Zé Pereira". In 1995, the Rooster brought together more than one million people, a feat that the attended Guinness World Records. The Olinda Carnival is known worldwide for the parades of the Bonecos de Olinda, dolls over two meters, colorful and easily located, which go out with the revelers. The party is held in the historic center of the city.

São João de Caruaru is one of the most famous in Brazil. It has several entertainment centers, artistic shows, presentation of folkloric and regional groups and typical cuisine with corn-based delicacies such as canjica, mush, corn cake, peanut and others. At the largest São João party in the world, the audience reaches 1.5 million people. Journalists from around the world register the event, which is on Guinness World Records, in the largest outdoor country (regional) party category on the planet.

Cultural spaces

Francisco Brennand Ceramics Workshop

Culture house

The state is home to many museums, cultural centers and institutions dedicated to the promotion of artistic actions, such as the Gilberto Freyre Foundation, the Cericina Francisco Brennand, the Ricardo Brennand Institute, the Museu do Homem do Nordeste, the Cais do Sertão Museum, the Paço do Frevo, the Pernambuco Archaeological, Historical and Geographic Institute, the Portuguese Reading Office, the Abolition Museum, the Train Museum, the City of Recife Museum, the Pernambuco State Museum, the Aloísio Magalhães Modern Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Pernambuco, Caixa Cultural, the Cultural Center of Correios, Santander Cultural, the Pernambucan Academy of Letters, the Academy of Arts and Letters of Pernambuco, the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation, the Barro and Forró Museum, the Sertão Museum, the Santa Isabel Theater, among others. The Pernambuco State Museum, created in 1928, has a large eclectic collection, with about 12 thousand items covering the areas of art, anthropology, history and ethnography. The Museu do Homem do Nordeste, linked to the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation / Ministry of Education, is an important anthropological museum that brings together a collection of about 15,000 pieces of cultural heritage from the formation of the Northeastern people. It also has a projection room, the Museum Cinema, where alternative films are shown, which are not shown in large rooms. Cais do Sertão, an interactive and objects museum considered one of the most modern cultural facilities in the country, was elected the 18th best museum in South America by users of the TripAdvisor travel site. The Oficina Cerâmica Francisco Brennand is a monumental complex with 15 km² of built area - art museum and studio - created by the artist Francisco Brennand, it has a collection with more than 2 thousand pieces between sculptures and paintings. The Ricardo Brennand Institute (IRB), founded by the collector and businessman Ricardo Brennand, is based in a medieval-style architectural complex, consisting of three buildings: Castelo São João Museum, gallery and gallery, surrounded by a vast park. It houses one of the largest collections of bladed weapons in the world, in addition to a permanent collection of historical-artistic objects from different origins, covering the period from the Low Middle Ages to the 21st century, with a strong emphasis on historical and iconographic documentation related to the colonial period and Dutch Brazil.

The Ricardo Brennand Institute, in Recife, houses one of the largest collections of bladed weapons in the world, with more than 3 thousand pieces, among them 27 complete medieval armor. It was elected the best museum in Latin America by TripAdvisor users.

Cooking

The roll cake, an icon of Pernambuco sweets and one of the symbols of Pernambuco.

The Brazilian feijoada and cachaça probably originate from Pernambuco. The beiju, an indigenous delicacy, was discovered in Pernambuco in the 16th century.

Pernambuco Cuisine

Pernambuco's cuisine was directly influenced by European, African and indigenous cultures. Several original recipes from other continents have been adapted with ingredients easily found in the region, resulting in unique combinations of flavors, colors and aromas. It stands out for its so-called "Pernambuco sweets", that is, the sweets developed during the colonial and imperial periods in its sugar mills such as the bolo de rolo, the nego bom and the top hat; and also for the drinks and savory delicacies discovered or probably originated in the state, such as cachaça, beiju and feijoada à Brasileira.

The most well-known delicacies are, among others, beiju or tapioca, Brazilian feijoada, tidy, hiding, broths such as sururu, shrimp and fish broths, caldeirada, Pernambuco moqueca, Pernambuco fish stew, cooked, chambaril, beef jerky, coconut bredo, coconut beans, quibebe, chicken with cabidela, angu, salted mungunzá, sarapatel, buchada and rabada. Among the most common drinks, cachaça deserves special mention; and among the sweets coming from Pernambuco we can mention the bolo de bolo, the Souza Leão cake, the white bar cake, the top hat and the good nigger. In São João, maize foods are present in pamonha, canjica, corn cake, sweet mungunzá, among other delicacies.

The Souza Leão cake, the roll cake and the top hat received, by law, status of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the State of Pernambuco. The beiju from Alto da Sé de Olinda, considered the most traditional in Brazil and preserved by the "Association of Tapioqueiras de Olinda", received the title of intangible heritage of the city.

Recife is the third largest gastronomic center in Brazil according to the Brazilian Association of Bars and Restaurants (Abrasel) - with around 10,000 establishments - after Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.

Pernambuco is the state with the largest number of restaurants starring the Guia Quatro Rodas in the North, Northeast, Midwest and South of Brazil, and the fourth in Brazil, behind only São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. Sixteen Pernambuco establishments, with renowned chefs and ranging from regional cuisine to Portuguese, Italian, French, Japanese and Peruvian cuisine, were awarded in 2013.

sports

The most popular sport in the state is football. Pernambuco is the leader among the states of the North-Northeast in the ranking of CBF federations, and Recife was one of the six headquarters of the 1950 World Cup (only the northeastern headquarters), in addition to hosting the 2013 Confederations Cup and the 2014 World.

Náutico is the mastermind of the Pernambuco Arena. Sport and Santa Cruz eventually use the stadium.

Autódromo Internacional de Caruaru

Pernambuco is also the state of the North-Northeast that stands out the most in other sports: it is the second Brazilian state in number of national hockey titles, both in the men's and women's championship, behind only São Paulo, and the Sport Club do Recife is one of only two Brazilian clubs to win a South American Hockey Championship; and it is the only state outside the Center-South with Brazilian and South American basketball titles, obtained by the female team of Sport Club do Recife between 2013 and 2014.

The Pernambuco Football Championship, one of the main state tournaments in the country, has been played since 1915, with a team from the capital as its champion. The main teams in the state are Sport Club do Recife, which has more state titles (41 in 2017), being also Brazilian Champion of 1987, Champion of the Brazilian Cup of 2008, Vice Champion of the Brazilian Cup of 1989 and Vice - Champion of the 2000 Champions Cup; Santa Cruz Futebol Clube, with 29 titles from Pernambuco, in addition to the title Fita Azul do Brasil for having returned undefeated to the country after an international tour in which he faced football teams like Paris Saint-Germain and some teams; and Clube Náutico Capibaribe, which holds the mark of the most consecutive state titles (Hexacampeão) out of a total of 21 achievements and the title of Brazilian Vice-Champion in 1967. The three main Pernambuco clubs are among the oldest and most traditional in Brazil.

Other sports clubs in the state are América (with six state football titles and the Nordeste Trophy), Clube Português do Recife, Central, Porto, Ypiranga, Salgueiro, Petrolina, Serra Talhada, Belo Jardim and o Araripina.

The biggest teams in Pernambuco have their own stadiums. The largest stadium built is the Estádio do Arruda, belonging to Santa Cruz. Also noteworthy is the Ilha do Retiro, which belongs to Sport, and the Estádio dos Aflitos, which belongs to Náutico, and Náutico currently plays in the Arena de Pernambuco, a modern stadium built in São Lourenço da Mata, in the Region Metropolitana do Recife, for the 2014 World Cup.

Holidays

The following table shows the holidays and optional points previously scheduled throughout the state of Pernambuco. In the capital, Recife, there are two municipal holidays: the 16th of July - Day of the Patron Saint Nossa Senhora do Carmo; and December 8 - Nossa Senhora da Conceição Day.

Today the whole story is related to the Brazilian Northeast that I describe here in everything with a lot of respect and love about my land, for cultural simplicity I want to talk about its origins and start a tradition that our people started when everything says what the Northeast it was the cradle of European colonization in the country, since it was the discovery or discovery of Brazil that refers, in Portuguese-Brazilian historiography, to the arrival of the fleet led by Pedro Álvares Cabral to the territory called Ilha de Vera Cruz, which occurred on the day April 22, 1500. This discovery is part of the discoveries and the Portuguese expedition and news of the finding of Brazil was reported by the expedition's registrar, Pero Vaz de Caminha. The Portuguese remained in Brazilian territory until May 2, 1500, when, then, they continued their journey towards India, the great objective of the expedition. The arrival of the Portuguese in Brazil is one of the final results of the great navigations, the ocean exploration that gave throughout the 15th century. Although the Spaniards first arrived in the American continent, the Portuguese are considered to be the pioneers in this process of exploration, making great “discoveries” in that period.

By: Roberto Barros