The history of the city of São Paulo runs parallel to the history of Brazil, throughout approximately 470 years of its existence, in relation to the country's more than five hundred years. During the first three centuries since its foundation, São Paulo stood out in several moments as the scenario of important events of rupture in the country's history.
São Paulo emerged as a Jesuit mission, on January 25, 1554, gathering in its first territories inhabitants of both European and indigenous origin. Over time, the settlement became a commercial and service center of relative regional importance. This characteristic of a commercial city with a heterogeneous composition would accompany the city throughout its history, and would reach its apex after the vast demographic and economic growth resulting from the coffee cycle and industrialization that would raise São Paulo to the position of largest city in the country.
Pre-Colonial period The oldest carbon-14 data obtained to date suggest that the first human groups settled in the current state of São Paulo in the early millennia of the Holocene, between 11,000 and 9,000 years ago. This initial occupation was by nomadic indigenous peoples living in small camps, with a hunting economy that required a diversity of stone tools produced by lithic reduction, as well as instruments made from organic raw materials (such as bone and wood). Among the tools stand out the large unifacial scrapers, widely used for animal shedding activities, as well as arrows and hammerstones. At first, as a way to facilitate the understanding of the occupation processes of the region, archaeological research focused on the context of the São Paulo territory associated with these populations to two distinct archaeological traditions: Umbu and Humaitá.
The oldest archaeological records ever discovered in the municipality of São Paulo were collected at the Morumbi site, presenting an estimated dating of 5 500 years BP. Found by chance in 1964, more than 200 000 stone tools were identified at the Morumbi site over four stages of excavation, which would reinforce the hypothesis that it was an area for obtaining raw materials for stone tool production. In 2002, during the Rodoanel construction work, another archaeological site with a large number of hammerstone fragments was found, which was named Jaraguá 2.
The archaeological records concerning horticultural and pottery populations are more recent in and around São Paulo, likely dating back to the first centuries of the Christian era. By dominating the agriculture of carbohydrate-rich crops such as maize and cassava, such groups presented a higher demographic density, being the ancestors of the populations speaking languages related to the Macro- Jê and Tupi branches. Although they also produced tools from rocks and other materials, the archaeological remains for which they are best known are ceramics. This is the case at the Jaraguá 1, Jardim Princesa 1, Jardim Princesa 2 and Penha sites, places where the pottery found has been associated with the Tupiguarani Tradition. Other archaeological sites where indigenous ceramic material was found, but without association with known archaeological traditions, are Olaria II, Jaraguá Clube, and Paulistão. There is also abundant evidence for the presence of Jê ceramic populations, generally associated by the archaeological literature with the Itararé-Taquara Tradition.
During the 19th century, several historical researches concluded, based on documents from the colonial period, that the lands of the Plains of Piratininga were inhabited by the Guaianás (also known as Guaianazes). Although it is now known that these groups were related to the Macro-Jê linguistic branch, possibly ancestors of the current Kaingang, they were often associated with the Tupi-Guaraní-speaking peoples by the eighteenth-century São Paulo historiography. According to Monteiro:
On the other hand, archaeological and historiographical data from the 17th and 18th centuries have shown that the Guaianá were numerous in the village of São Paulo at that time, as they were captured by the bandeirantes expeditions to serve as slaves in the plantations. The term "Guaianá", however, does not necessarily describe a specific people, but several non-Guaraní populations, and is not a term used by the Indians themselves. According to the accounts left by the Jesuits in the 16th century, the so-called Piratininga plateau was inhabited predominantly by Tupi groups upon the arrival of the Europeans, with the Tupiniquins often being mentioned.
Colonial period
Precedents In 1532, Martim Afonso de Sousa founded the first Brazilian village of São Vicente on the coast of São Paulo. There, the first conflict between Europeans in South America took place, the Iguape War. Donatário of the Captaincy of São Vicente, Martim Afonso encouraged the occupation of the region, and other villages were created on the coast (Itanhaém, 1532; Santos, 1546). A few years later, after overcoming the barrier represented by the Serra do Mar, the Portuguese colonizers advanced through the Paulistan plateau, establishing new settlements. In 1553, João Ramalho, who had lived on the plateau since before the creation of São Vicente, founded the village of Santo André da Borda do Campo, located on the way to the sea (today in the metropolitan region of São Paulo). João Ramalho was married to Bartira, an Indian who was the daughter of Tibiriçá, the Tupiniquim cacique.
Foundation
Interested in establishing a place where he could catechize the natives away from the influence of white men, Father Manuel da Nóbrega, superior of the Society of Jesus in Brazil, observed that a nearby region located on a plateau would be the ideal point, then called Piratininga. On August 29, 1553, Father Nóbrega made 50 catechumens among the natives, which increased the desire to found a Jesuit college in Brazil.
Although the quest for catechesis without the influence of the white man was a goal, what precipitated the move to the plateau was the need to solve the problem of feeding the indigenous people who were being indoctrinated, as Father Anchieta states:
In January 1554, a group of Jesuits, commanded by priest Manuel da Nóbrega, assisted by the Jesuit priest Joseph of Anchieta and João Ramalho arrived at the plateau. Intending to catechize the indigenous people living in the region, the Jesuits erected a mud hut on a high and flat hill, located between the Tietê, Anhangabaú, and Tamanduateí rivers, with the consent of local indigenous chiefs, such as the cacique Tibiriçá, who commanded a nearby Tupiniquim village, and cacique Tamandiba. On January 25, the day that commemorates the conversion of the apostle Paul, Father Manuel de Paiva celebrated the first mass on the hill. The celebration marked the beginning of the installation of the Jesuits at the site and went down in history as the birth of the city of São Paulo. Two years later, the priests erected a church - the first lasting building in the settlement. Next, they built a school and a pavilion with living quarters. Of these original buildings, only one mud wall remains, where the Pátio do Colégio is today.
Around the school, a small settlement of converted natives, Jesuits, and Portuguese colonizers was formed. In 1560, the population of the village would be significantly increased, when, by order of Mem de Sá, general governor of the colony, the inhabitants of the village of Santo André da Borda do Campo were transferred to the vicinity of the college. The village of Santo André was extinguished, and the settlement was elevated to this category, with the name "Vila de São Paulo de Piratininga". By royal act, in the same year, the town council, then called "Casa do Conselho", was created. It was likely in the same year of 1560 that the Confraternity of Mercy of São Paulo (now "Santa Casa de Misericórdia") was created.
In 1562, troubled by the alliance between the Tupiniquim and the Portuguese, the Tupinambás, united in the Confederação dos Tamoios, launched a series of attacks against the village on July 9, in the episode known as Cerco de Piratininga. The defense organized by Tibiriçá and João Ramalho prevented the Tupinambás from entering São Paulo, and forced them to retreat, on July 10 of the same year.
Still in 1590, with the imminence of a new attack, the city again prepared itself with defense works. But at the turn of the 17th century, the situation calmed down and the settlement was consolidated. In the words of Alcantara Machado:
City occupation Since the beginning, the occupation of the city's land was polycentric, with several villages, mainly Jesuit, but also from other ecclesiastical orders, around which the agglomerations began. The main motivation in São Paulo for this was the relief of the city, with many slopes and streams. The urban organization, as in the whole colony, was centered, administratively and ecclesiastically, in parishes. Each parish was centered on a chapel.
The first parish was the Freguesia da Sé, founded in 1589. As the other centers grew, they dismembered, with new chapels gaining parish status. The parishes dismembered from the center were:
1796, March 26: Parishes of Nossa Senhora do Ó and Penha de França. 1809, April 21: Santa Ifigênia parish, close but separated by the Anhangabaú river. 1812, October 21: Parish of São Bernardo, which the following year (1813, November 9) was still elevated to district. 1818, June 8: Parish of Brás, close, but separated by the Tamanduateí river.
Besides these, there were several more distant villages. Among them, only two prospered: Pinheiros and São Miguel, both founded by José de Anchieta in 1560. Inaugurated in 1580 and later rebuilt in 1622, the chapel erected by the Jesuits in the current neighborhood of São Miguel Paulista is considered the oldest in the municipality of São Paulo. Several villages were decimated by smallpox, among which can be mentioned: Itaquaquecetuba, Mboy, Itapecerica, Barueri, Guarapiranga, Carapicuíba, Ibirapuera and Guarulhos.
Also in the 16th century, new churches were founded: the Mother Church, in 1588 (the prototype of the São Paulo cathedral), Nossa Senhora do Carmo Church, in 1592 (demolished in 1928), Santo Antônio Church (currently in Patriarca Square), and Nossa Senhora da Assunção Chapel, around 1600 (which would give rise to the current São Bento Monastery). A traveler arriving in the city in the first decades of the 19th century would encounter the following:
The basis of food in the early days was formed by canjica, one of the main indigenous influences in colonial cuisine, the angu (a type of porridge made with cornmeal, maize, or cassava flour). Cassava, which was the main food at the beginning of the village, was slowly being supplanted by corn. Wheat, although growing in the region, was not very used in the beginning - only for sacramental bread and cookies - due to the ease of obtaining cassava and corn. It was only in the early years of the 17th century that greater wheat production began, with at least fifty wheat planters on the plateau and several licenses from the Chamber for residents to build their mills.
Besides these staple foods, wild fruits, palm hearts and other foods found on Amerindian plantations were part of the diet, as well as many European fruits such as apples, peaches, blackberries, melons, and watermelons. The culture of grape also developed in the early years. Wine was plentiful and often used as medicine, serving as vehicles for medicinal plants. The same was true for the cachaça produced in the region.
The bandeirantes