Four miles to the south-east of the capital, and one distant from the left bank of the Maruhy, is the parish of St. Joze, upon a bay of the same name, with a pottery of glazed earthenware. The inhabitants grow the same articles as the preceding.
Eight miles north-west of the capital is the pleasant parish of St. Miguel, upon a bay so called, which forms a good roadstead. Its inhabitants cultivate and export a large quantity of rice and farinha, with some sugar. Near this place is the principal establishment for whale fishing.
The town of St. Francisco is of middling size, well supplied with fish and the provisions of the country, with houses mostly built of earth, and a handsome church of stone, dedicated to Our Lady da Graca. It is upon the western beach of the island of that name, about ten miles within the bar of Babitonga, upon level ground, and in a situation well calculated for commerce. Only two streets are paved. The inhabitants, generally whites, are very pale, and almost all farmers of mandioca. The cultivation of Indian corn, rice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco, which might be considerable, is at present very trifling. There are few persons who do not possess at least one canoe. Vessels are built here of good burden. Timber and cordage of imbe are the most important exportations next to farinha (flour of mandioca.)
This province, which makes a part of the bishopric of Rio de Janeiro, was till recently under the jurisdiction of the ouvidor of Portalegre, but is now governed by Senhor Alexandre Eloi Portelli.
CHAP. IX.
PROVINCE OF ST. PAULO.
Boundaries—First Settlement—Mountains—Mineralogy—Rivers and Ports—Islands—Phytology—Zoology—Bugre Indians, Dwellings and Customs—Character of the Paulistas—Division into Comarcas—Comarca of Curytiba—Towns and Productions—Comarcas of St. Paulo and Hitu—Towns and Productions.
This province, formed by the union of a part of the capitania of St. Amaro, with one half of that of St. Vincente, took the name which designates it in the year 1710, when John V. incorporating them with the crown lands by purchase, nominated a governor, with the title of captain-general, in the person of Antonio de Albuquerque Coelho, and the city of St. Paulo for his residence. It is confined on the north by the province of Minas Geraes, from which the serra of Mantiqueira separates it, and by that of Goyaz, from which it is divided by the river Grande; on the south by Rio Grande do Sul, of which the river Pellotas forms the division; on the west by the river Paranna, which separates it from the provinces of Goyaz and Matto Grosso; and on the east by the ocean, and the provinces of Rio de Janeiro on the northern part, and St. Catherina on the southern. Its territory is almost all within the temperate zone, between 20° 30′ and 28° south latitude, comprising four hundred and fifty miles from north to south, and three hundred and forty miles of medium width from east to west; and possessing much variety in the climate, soil, and aspect of the country.
John III. determining to divide the Brazilian coast into capitanias, at the period that Martim Affonso de Souza was in this new region, presented him, in 1532, with one comprising a hundred leagues of coast, and his brother Pedro Lopez de Souza, who had accompanied him, with another of fifty; but the letter of donation to Martim Affonso was not signed till the 20th of January, 1535, at the time when he had already taken his departure for India. It specified that this captaincy, which afterwards took the name of St. Vincente, should extend from the river Maccahe as far as twelve leagues to the southward of the island of Cannanea, where the bar of Paranagua is situated, excepting a certain portion of ten leagues, computed from the river Curupace, now called Jiquiriquere, to that of St. Vincente. The capitania of Pedro Lopez de Souza, which was denominated St. Amaro, included the said ten leagues. That of St. Vincente had scarcely existed forty years, when it was deprived of half its territory, for the purpose of creating the new one of Rio de Janeiro.
With the change of possessors, the southern limits of both capitanias disappeared, and the jurisdiction of the governors began to extend by degrees over the countries which now constitute the provinces of Minas Geraes, Goyaz, Matto Grosso, St. Catharina, and Rio Grande do Sul, where, through the adventures of the Paulistas, colonies were first planted.
The authority of Herrera would warrant the conclusion that there was a factory at St. Vincente in the year 1527. At all events, the licence which Martim Affonso conceded to Pedro Goes, on the 3d of March, 1533, for the purpose of exporting seventeen captive Indians, free of all duties which it was customary to pay, amply demonstrates that such an establishment had existed for some time previous to the latter year. Martim Affonso found here, as has been already observed, two Europeans, Antonio Rodrigues, and John Ramalho, whom Herrera imagined had escaped from some shipwreck upon the coast; but it would seem improbable that they could of themselves have constituted a factory; as establishments of that kind, formed amongst barbarians, necessarily require a considerable number of persons.