Guaíba
Guaíba
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Guaíba

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Guaíba

Guaíba is a city located in the Metropolitan Porto Alegre of Porto Alegre, in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is on the shores of the Guaíba Lake.

In the current territory of the municipality of Guaíba there have been archeological discoveries of elements representing Guaraní culture, the oldest found in the region. These indigenous settlements would have been settled between 10000 and 6000 BCE (Laroque 2002).

There is conclusive evidence of multiple conflicts between the indigenous peoples of the area and the colonial-era Portuguese on the land where Guaíba currently stands, with the indigenous incurring substantial losses while trying to defend their land.

The border disputes in between the Spanish and Portugueses thrones also involved the strategic land on which Guaíba now sits. The Portuguese had used a system of quickly distributing land to new settlers called the sesmaria in what was considered contested territory, but the new beneficiaries of this system helped Portugal consolidate their rule over what is now Rio Grande do Sul.

After a 1776 victory over Spain, Portugal gained control over a wide area of land definitively, and sesmarias were distributed in the region where Guaíba is today. Antônio Ferreira Leitão officially acquired the lands of modern-day Guaíba in 1793. His daughter married José Gomes de Vasconcelos Jardim, who was Vice-President of the briefly independent Riograndense Republic.

One generation later, during the Farroupilha Rebellion launched by the people of Rio Grande do Sul against the Brazilian Empire, revolutionary forces to plan their attack the night before they were to take over Porto Alegre on 19 September 1835. People involved in the traditionalist gaúcho (Rio Grande do Sul) movement in the 1960s named Guaíba the "cradle of the Ragamuffin War" (in Portuguese, Revolução Farroupilha).

Evidence indicates that the village of Pedras Brancas began in the second half of the 19th century, since the area was a necessary stopping point from inland Rio Grande do Sul and the capital. Meat processing facilities grew and the settlement involved slaves, peons and cattle ranchers. The lands of modern-day Guaíba were a necessary transit point for people from the South or West of the state heading to Porto Alegre.

To cross the Guaíba lake to Porto Alegre, one had to travel by boat. Indigenous boats had been doing the crossing for generations but by the late 19th century steamboats had become the most common vehicle used to cross.

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