Domingos Fernandes (1577 – 24 January 1652) was a Portuguese bandeirante in what is now the state of São Paulo.

He established the village in the name of Our Lady of Candelaria, a veneration of the Virgin Mary, who later became the patron saint of the current city.

[2] Domingos was the son of Manoel Fernandes and Susana Dias, who founded the village of Parnahyba, what would become the current-day city of Santana de Parnaíba.

These missions would later go on to actively track down and destroy Jesuit missionaries in the region, where the native Guaraní had also fled to in order to avoid enslavement.

He erected a chapel in the village, invoking Our Lady of Candelaria of Itu (where the Igreja de Bom Jesus stands today).