The History of Espírito Santo is composed of studies focused on the evolution of the territory and society of the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil, from the first indigenous inhabitants and the creation of the Captaincy of Espírito Santo by Vasco Fernandes Coutinho, in 1535, to the present day.
Also in 1535, the settlement of Vila Velha was founded, the first population center of the captaincy. In the task of catechizing the region's Indians, the figure of Joseph of Anchieta stood out.
There was a long period in the meantime, unknown to many, when Espírito Santo was annexed to Bahia, with its capital based in Salvador.
The prohibition of mining in Minas Gerais and the presence of hostile tribes in the countryside contributed to Espírito Santo remaining for a long time an essentially coastal captaincy. The situation changed only in the second half of the 19th century, due to the expansion of coffee farming. The occupation of the extreme north occurred at the beginning of the 20th century, due to the first cacao plantations, established by farmers from Bahia. But it was only in 1963 that Espírito Santo acquired its current geographical configuration, with the solution of the old dispute between the state and Minas Gerais, regarding the ownership of the Serra dos Aimorés region.
Today, Espírito Santo has valuable assets in the push for economic development: A privileged geographical location, rich reserves of radioactive minerals on the coast, one of the largest ore ports in the world, and the second-largest oil production in Brazil.
Pre-Columbian period
Initially, the region was inhabited by several indigenous tribes, such as the Aimoré and Goitacá. Most Indians belonged to the Tupi trunk. The tribes in the remote areas were called Botocudos, and were attributed to hostile and bellicose behavior and the practice of anthropophagy. On the coast, the tribes were also hostile, but with different habits.
The first expeditions The first expedition to explore the coast of Espírito Santo left Portugal in 1501, with the navigator Americo Vespucci on board. Other expeditions in the following years, such as the one by Pedro Álvares Cabral, discovered and explored areas off and on the eastern coast of Brazil.
Early days
On May 23, 1535, the Portuguese nobleman Vasco Fernandes Coutinho, veteran of the campaigns in Africa and India, docked in the lands of the captaincy, which had been assigned to him by King John III of Portugal. As it was a Whit Sunday, he named the village to be built on the land he was grantedFifty leagues of coast, between the Mucuri and Itapemirim rivers, with as much inland, from the point where the portion granted to Pero de Campos Tourinho, donee of the Captaincy of Porto Seguro, ended in the north.'Espírito Santo' (Portuguese for "holy spirit"). Today, Vila do Espírito Santo is the city of Vila Velha. In 1535, the village became a captaincy, in 1822 a province, and in 1889 a state.
The establishment of the village consisted of a series of struggles, as the natives did not give up their lands to the Portuguese without resistance. They retreated to the forest, where they concentrated to start a guerrilla warfare that lasted, with small truces, until the middle of the 17th century. Vasco Fernandes Coutinho's undertaking was thus one of the hardest. For the patriarch of Espírito Santo, the captaincy that was initially a prize turned into punishment; he had to commit all his possessions to preserve his village and ended up dying poor.
Besides the insubordination of the natives, the donee had to face dissension among the Portuguese. To his companions Jorge de Meneses and Duarte Lemos he granted extensive sesmarias,A Portuguese system, adapted in Brazil, which regulated the distribution of land for agricultural production. using the powers he had received along with the letter of donation. With this, he created two rivals.
Duarte de Lemos founded Vitória - at the time called Vila Nova - on the island of Santo Antônio, in a strategic position, more advantageous than Vila Velha for defense against the constant attacks of the natives. At the same time, Jesuit missionaries arrived and engaged in catechesis, which caused clashes with the settlers, who preferred to dominate the indigenous peoples through slavery. Since 1561, the Jesuit Joseph of Anchieta had chosen the village of Reritiba as his refuge, from where he had to be constantly away, due to his duties, either in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, or Bahia. He wrote two poems in Reritiba: "De Beata Virgine dei Marte Maria" ("Of the Holy Virgin Mary Mother of God") and "De Gestis Mendi de Saa" ("Of the deeds of Mem de Sá"). The latter describes the Battle of Cricaré, an epic of a squadron sent from Bahia by Mem de Sá, general governor of Brazil, to the rescue of Vasco Fernandes Coutinho and his people, who were under siege by the Tamoio on the island of Vitória. The largest force of the indigenous was concentrated in a fortified village by the Cricaré River. The decisive battle took place there, on May 22, 1558. The Portuguese, though victorious, suffered heavy casualties. Among the dead were Mem de Sá's son, Fernão de Sá, who commanded the squadron; and two sons of Caramuru (Diogo Álvares Correia) with the Indian woman Paraguaçu.
The strategic position of the captaincy, given its proximity to Rio de Janeiro, led to some foreign invasion attempts. In 1592, the Capixabas (natives to the state) repulsed an English onslaught, under the command of Thomas Cavendish. In 1625, the donee Francisco de Aguiar Coutinho faced the first Dutch attack, commanded by Pieter Pieterszoon Hein, a fight in which the heroine Maria Ortiz stood out. In 1640, with seven ships, the Dutch attacked Espírito Santo again, under the command of Colonel Koin. They managed to land 400 men but were repelled by the captain major ("capitão-mor") João Dias Guedes and did not settle in Vitória. They then attacked Vila Velha, from where they were also repulsed. The colonial government, faced with such repeated attacks, decided to send forty infantrymen from the regular troop to Vitória. On this occasion, the captaincy progressed and Koin captured two ships carrying sugar that, hit by land fire, were almost completely damaged.
The depletion of the population, which in the early days threatened several times to desert the captaincy, as well as the inability to continue its incipient agriculture, revealed the weakness of the foundations on which the local colonization was based. There, too, private resources proved insufficient to maintain such a difficult and costly enterprise.
In 1627, Francisco de Aguiar Coutinho died, whose successor, Ambrósio de Aguiar Coutinho, was not interested in the lordship and continued as governor in the Azores. A succession of captains followed, with frequent and serious disagreements between them and the council officers. Upon coming of age, in 1667, Antônio Luís Gonçalves da Câmara Coutinho, the last descendant of the first donee, was appointed captain major by Antônio Mendes de Figueiredo, an esteemed governor. In 1674, the purchase of the territory from the last donee of the Câmara Coutinho family was made by the Bahia nobleman Francisco Gil de Araújo, for forty thousand cruzados, a transaction confirmed by a royal letter of March 18, 1675.
Emeralds
Under the new donee's government, trade and farming developed, but the main reason for buying the captaincy was frustrated: The discovery of emeralds. This search had begun at the initiative of the general government and the cycle was limited to a few relevant expeditions, whose importance lied less in the results obtained, than in the dynamization of interest in the area and greater knowledge of the countryside. Among the most notable were Diogo Martins Cão (1596), Marcos de Azeredo (1611), and Agostinho Barbalho de Bezerra (1664), who searched the vicinity of the Doce River. Francisco Gil de Araújo founded the village of Nossa Senhora de Guarapari and built the forts of Monte do Carmo and São Francisco Xavier. The one of São João, found in ruins, was rebuilt.
Gil de Araújo promoted 14 expeditions across the Rio Doce, heading to the Serra das Esmeraldas, which may have had contact with the Paulistans (bandeirantes) of Fernão Dias Pais. Francisco Gil's activity and capital expenditure did not result in any metalliferous discoveries, although there were some gains in land valuation, through the establishment of settlers and the creation of new engenhos. The profits, however, did not compensate for the investment made. His son and heir, likely for this reason, preferred to stay away from the lordship and, after his death, the captaincy became vacant and was sold to the crown by Cosme Rolim de Moura, a cousin of the last donee. As a result, Espírito Santo was submitted to the jurisdiction of Bahia.
During the 18th century, the interest in mining persisted, revived by Antônio Rodrigues Arzão's discovery of a small quantity of gold in the Doce River, in 1692. Numerous enterprises followed, beginning with the opening of the road to Minas Gerais, while the deposits of Castelo and other places attracted residents from neighboring captaincies. A new impulse of conquest and occupation of the countryside was witnessed, and the concessions of sesmarias favored the settlement of enterprising individuals. The movement aroused the attention of the Bahian authorities and ended up being hampered by the care of the royal monopoly and fear of a foreign invasion of Minas Gerais from Espíriro Santo. Measures were then taken to better fortify the captaincy, while by order of the king, it was forbidden to continue explorations. The opening of entrances to the mines was prevented. The captaincy defended itself from maritime attacks and was isolated by natural defenses: Closed forests and Indians fighting for their territories. Colonization, therefore, continued without further progress, although in 1741 the comarca of Vitória was created, which covered São Salvador de Campos and São João da Barra. In 1747, the ombudsman Manuel Nunes Macedo described the situation in Vitória as follows:"Here there is no jail or town hall, because they fell down and my predecessors did not take care in rebuilding them (...) for the City Council has no income."The obstinacy of the miners and the improvements made in the defense system eventually weakened the prohibitions, and in 1758, according to a royal order, a road to the mines was opened and a discharge post was established in the village of Campos.
In 1797, the regent John VI addressed the governor of Bahia in the following terms:"Since it is my particular duty to revive the almost extinct captaincy of Espírito Santo, entrusted until now to ignorant and not very zealous captains, I was served to nominate a private governor for it, who is now subordinate to you, and to choose a name of known lights and prestige in the person of the Frigate captain Antônio Pires da Silva Pontes."The new governor took office on March 29, 1800. The main objective of the recovery work was to improve communication with Minas Gerais. On October 8 of the same year, Silva Pontes signed the act, together with the representative of the government of Minas Gerais, which regulated the collection of taxes between the two captaincies. He was also interested in the navigation of the Doce River, the opening of roads, the expansion of crops, and the settlement of the land. In 1810, the captaincy became autonomous from Bahia and responded directly to the general government. At that time, Manuel Vieira de Albuquerque Touvar ruled, who did not deviate from Silva Pontes' program. He named the ancient ruins of the village of Coutins Linhares.