History of Amazonas
When Orellana traveled down the present-day Amazon river in search of gold and spices in 1541, heading for the Atlantic Ocean, the stream was called Grande, Mar Dulce or even Río de la Canela, because of the large cinnamon trees found there.
[5][6] However, the main name given to the river was Rio de las Amazonas, due to the supposed victorious resistance of warrior natives against the invaders, reported by the Spanish expeditionaries.
According to food remains found in the Pedra Pintada cave in Monte Alegre, in western Pará, the Paleoindian phase is expected to have lived around 9,200 years ago.
[3][7] The Late Prehistoric period takes place between 1,000 BC and 1,000 AD and is characterized by the emergence of indigenous societies with a high degree of economic, demographic, political, social development and cultural domains.
This culture was soon succeeded by hierarchical and complex societies, which emerged mainly in the Marajó Island region, and in a zone between Santarém, in Pará, and Urucurituba, in Amazonas.
[3][7] However, the current indigenous societies of the Amazon do not have any traits reminiscent of complex communities from the Late Prehistoric period, with the exception of a few material traces.
[8][6] Orellana claimed to have encountered and fought a tribe of warrior women, which is why he named the course "the river of the Amazons", in reference to the characters from Greek mythology.
One of Orellana's companions, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, published reports of the expedition describing the riches and inhabitants of the region, which were released in Venice in 1556.
In the same year, the French founded Equinoctial France on the island of São Luís, off the coast of Maranhão, which was conquered at the end of 1615 by Portuguese-Spanish troops.
After this conquest, Francisco Caldeira Castelo Branco was designated to move towards the mouth of the Amazon river, founding the Presépio Fort in December of that same year, nucleus of the present-day city of Belém.
[10] Between 1637 and 1639, an expedition led by Pedro Teixeira traveled up and down the course of the Amazon river, reaching Quito, in Ecuador, and founding the present-day town of Franciscana, already in Peruvian territory.
The fortification served as a base for the settlement of the Amazonas, allowing the navigation up the Negro and Branco rivers, in present-day Roraima, from where the Orinoco was reached.
[15] The first settlers faced hostility from the natives, such as the tribes of the Manaós, led by the cacique Ajuricaba, and the Torás, who attacked the settlements and destroyed houses and facilities.
[16] In order to catechize and pacify the natives, the Jesuits (mostly Spanish) built colonies, mainly in the Solimões and Juruá basins, led by Father Samuel Fritz.
The settlements that would give rise to today's Barcelos (then called Mariuá), Tefé, São Paulo de Olivença, Coari, Borba and Airão were created at this time.
In order to study and demarcate the boundaries, the governor of the state, Francisco Xavier de Mendonça Furtado, set up a commission based in Mariuá in 1754.
In 1757, the first governor of the captaincy, Joaquim de Mello e Póvoas, took office and was ordered by the Marquis of Pombal to forcibly expel all the Jesuits, who were accused of turning the natives against the metropolis and not teaching them the Portuguese language.
When the Royal Family moved to Brazil, manufacturers were allowed to set up shop and Amazonas began to produce cotton, cordage, ceramics and candles.
The province began to receive immigrants from various parts of Brazil (mainly northeasterners, fleeing the drought of 1872) and also from neighboring countries such as Bolivia and Peru.
The construction of the Amazon Theater, the Rio Negro Palace, the Port Customs House and the Adolpho Lisboa Municipal Market, among other exemplary buildings, date back to this period.
Brazilian and foreign scientists such as Carl von Martius, William Chandless, Henry Walter Bates and Louis Agassiz explored the forest, almost always guided by the caboclo Manuel Urbano da Encarnação.
Politics suffered successive crises, with disputes sponsored by rubber entrepreneurs such as local caudillos Eduardo Ribeiro and Guerreiro Antoni.
In 1924, Amazonas joined São Paulo in a civic-regionalist movement that demanded that the natives of the region take back political and cultural leadership.
[31] In 1943, as part of the defense strategy in World War II, the border territories of Rio Branco (now Roraima) and Guaporé (now Rondônia) were also dismembered from Amazonas, sparking protests in Manaus.
[32] In 1953, in an attempt to restore growth in the region, the federal government created the Superintendence of the Amazon Economic Valorization Plan (SPVEA) in order to release funds for investment in infrastructure, such as the construction of the Manaus-Porto Velho and Manaus-Boa Vista highways.
[36] Currently, the company is responsible for most of the investments in the state, including the PIATAM (environmental research) projects and the construction of the Coari-Manaus gas pipeline.
