Rio de Janeiro

History

When Gaspar de Lemos sailed past Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain) into Baía de Guanabara in [Page 1491]January 1502, he mistakenly took the bay as a river and named the area Rio de Janeiro (January River), claiming the territory for Portugal. By the 17th century, the native Tamoio people were wiped out, while other Indians had been rounded up and taken to organized settlements.

In the late 17th century, gold, diamonds, and other precious minerals were discovered in nearby Minas Gerais. This drastically increased Rio's importance as an international port, used for exporting Brazil's wealth and for importing African slaves to work the mines. As a result, in 1763, the colonial capital of Portuguese America was moved from the northeastern port city of Salvador to the more convenient Rio de Janeiro. Rio remained primarily a colonial capital until 40 ships carrying Portuguese prince Dom João IV and his entire 15,000-person court set sail for Rio de Janeiro, fleeing as Napoleon's army marched on Lisbon. Upon arrival, Dom João took over as the ruler of colonial Brazil, and after being named king of Portugal, he declared Rio the capital of the Portuguese Empire, thus making Rio de Janeiro the only New World colony to ever have a European monarch ruling on its soil.

Near the end of the 19th century, after slavery was abolished (1888) and Brazil was declared a republic (1889) with Rio de Janeiro as its capital, the city experienced a population explosion attributed to European immigration and internal migration, mostly by ex-slaves leaving the declining coffee and sugar regions. By 1890, Rio had more than a million inhabitants, more than a quarter of them foreign born, and from the early to the mid-1900s, the city of Rio experienced a golden age, becoming a popular romantic and exotic destination for international high society who came to enjoy the newly built hotels, casinos, and clubs. In 1960, the capital of Brazil was moved from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia, and the high-rise buildings that are now a staple of Rio's skyline began replacing some of the city's most beautiful colonial buildings. At the same time, Rio's favela population grew rapidly with immigrants fleeing poverty-stricken areas in Brazil's northeast and interior, increasing the number of urban poor in Rio. A Cidade Maravilhosa (The Marvelous City) began losing its glimmer as crime and violence increased. Rio's problems were further compounded throughout the 21-year Brazilian military dictatorship when federal money to the city dried up. Infrastructure began deteriorating, and tourism fell as trash began soiling Rio's famously pristine beaches and visitors became increasingly targeted for theft.

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