Torres is a Brazilian municipality located at the northernmost point of the Atlantic coast in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city's landscape is distinguished as the only beach in Rio Grande do Sul featuring prominent rocky cliffs along the shoreline, and it is home to the state's sole maritime island, Ilha dos Lobos.
The area now occupied by the city has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years, with physical evidence in the form of middens and other archaeological findings. In the 17th century, during the Portuguese colonization of Brazil, the region's location within a narrowing of the southern coastal plain made it a mandatory passage for tropeiros and other Portuguese-Brazilian explorers and adventurers traveling south along the coast—the only alternative route was over the Vacaria plateau. These travelers sought the free-roaming cattle herds multiplying in the southern pampas and hunted indigenous peoples to enslave them. Many settled in the area, becoming ranchers and small-scale farmers. Due to its coastal hills, the area was soon recognized for its strategic value as a vantage point for observation and control, holding military and political significance in the Portuguese expansion over Spanish territory. A fortification was established there in the late 18th century, but it was soon dismantled once the conquest was secured.
The construction of the Church of Saint Dominic in the early 19th century drew many scattered residents to its surroundings, forming the nucleus of a village. However, its development throughout the century was slow, despite receiving waves of German and Italian immigrants, and it relied on a largely subsistence economy. Significant economic, social, and urban growth began in the early 20th century when the city's scenic beauty, mild climate, and inviting beaches were recognized for their tourism potential and began to be developed. Since then, Torres has grown more robustly and rapidly, becoming one of the most sought-after beaches in the state, attracting a monthly floating population of 200,000 during the summer, many of whom are foreigners, primarily from the La Plata Basin countries. This contrasts with its permanent population of approximately 38,000 residents. Despite this, the city has developed a solid economy and infrastructure to meet this tourist demand, its primary source of income.
While tourism has brought progress and growth, positioning the city as a state hub for events, festivals, sports competitions, performances, and other attractions, it has also introduced significant environmental and cultural challenges. Once covered by the Atlantic Forest, an area of particularly rich biodiversity due to the diverse environments created by its complex geography, this natural heritage is now severely threatened and greatly diminished, with few preserved areas remaining. Many species have already been lost, and others are at risk. Reports also highlight issues of property speculation, pollution, poverty, and crime, all serious problems common in cities experiencing rapid growth. This expansion has also negatively impacted the city's historical and artistic heritage, as neither official institutions nor the population have yet developed sufficient awareness to slow the rapid pace of active destruction and passive loss of tangible and intangible cultural assets.
History Prehistory The region of Torres, a coastal city in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years. The earliest groups to traverse it were hunter-gatherer peoples from the northern part of the continent, leaving various traces in the form of middens, large artificial mounds of shells often containing human burials and objects made of stone and bone, such as axes, net weights, hooks, arrowheads, and sculptures depicting birds, fish, cetaceans, quadrupeds, and rare anthropomorphic figures, along with other artifacts. During the Neolithic, these populations began to settle in the area, transitioning to a sedentary lifestyle, domesticating plants such as maize, peanut, tobacco, chili pepper, and potato for cultivation and becoming farmers. Evidence from this period also includes remnants of the Taquara culture, highland farmers who seasonally visited the coast to fish and collect mollusks to supplement their diet, setting up camps in areas bordering the restinga and dunes. Around the same time, the region experienced a new migratory wave, this time by the Guaranis, whose culture was more complex, with more intricate relics including ceramics and ritual objects, and it is believed they had developed basketry, featherwork, and weaving.Kern, Arno Alvarez. As Origens Históricas do Povoamento de Torres. IN Barroso, Vera Lucia Maciel; Quadros, Terezinha Conceição de Borba & Brocca, Maria Roseli Brovedan (coords). Raízes de Torres. Porto Alegre: EST, 1996. pp. 37-41Mergen, Natália Machado. O contato entre populações indígenas e coloniais no litoral meridional do Brasil . XI Salão de Iniciação Científica PUCRS, 9 a 12 de agosto de 2010, pp. 1090-1092Schmitz, Pedro Ignácio (ed). Pré-História do Rio Grande do Sul . IN Arqueologia do Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, Documento 5. Instituto Anchietano de Pesquisas - UNISINOS, 2006, 2ª ed., pp. 23-24
Portuguese colonization The geography of the Torres area is unique. Situated on a long coastal plain stretching from Laguna to beyond Chuí, one of the world's longest continuous sandy beaches, it stands out because it is the only place along the shore with rocky outcrops, the volcanic basalt "towers" that gave the city its name. Additionally, the coastal plain, wider to the north and south, narrows at this point, making it a mandatory passage for those avoiding the Serra Geral plateaus when traveling between the south and north. Indigenous peoples had already recognized Torres as a natural pathway, creating trails there before the Portuguese arrived.
Colonization by Europeans began not long after the discovery of Brazil in 1500. A 1639 letter from King Philip IV of Spain to the Viceroy of Peru, the Marquis of Mancera, notes that paulistas had been advancing along Brazil's southern coast for some time. The trails opened by indigenous groups became the routes used by the Portuguese throughout the 17th century, coming from the north, to gradually claim territory that, under the Treaty of Tordesillas, belonged to Spain—the Portuguese territory ended at Laguna, Santa Catarina, much further north. A chronicle by Jerônimo Rodrigues describes the area as the frontier of the Ibirajara indigenous nation, which dominated up to the Mampituba River, with the Patos or Carijós to the north, though they frequently encroached on each other's lands.Limberger, Emiliano. Índios Pato no Rio Grande do Sul? In Barroso, Quadros & Brocca, op. cit., pp. 44-47
Among the early white pioneers who ventured into these regions were slave hunters seeking indigenous captives and tropeiros gathering the cattle that multiplied freely in the pampas. Portugal, disregarding treaties, continued to encroach on Spanish lands. After the founding of Rio Grande in 1737 at the mouth of the Lagoa dos Patos, on the state's southern coast, the Portuguese established a military post at Imbé in 1738. However, this post could not control the entire area up to the Serra, and it became necessary to secure the narrowing of the coastal plain further north, where Torres would emerge. The Itapeva Rocks were the first site chosen, located about 60 km north of Imbé, where another military garrison was established. However, this site also proved to be insufficient, failing to cover a final trail used by cattle smugglers to pass undetected. By the late 17th century, the presence of some scattered Portuguese-Brazilian residents was recorded in the region.Ruschel, Ruy Ruben. Determinantes Iniciais de Torres. in Barroso, Quadros & Brocca, op. cit., pp. 50-53
From 1761, the granting of sesmarias between Itapeva and the Mampituba River is recorded, settling new colonists. In 1777, a battery with two cannons, named Fort of São Diogo das Torres, was erected on the eastern flank of Morro das Furnas, with the explicit purpose of controlling the Spanish, who had by then dominated Santa Catarina Island and threatened to advance south. The site was chosen for its elevated, unobstructed view over a wide area. However, following an armistice, the fort was abandoned, though its strategic value continued to be recognized and utilized. Consequently, Lieutenant-General Sebastião Xavier da Câmara, governor of the Captaincy of Rio Grande de São Pedro, ordered engineer José de Saldanha in 1797 to build a new guard post and military registry for controlling and taxing land passage, equipped with two caliber 4 cannons and a detachment of soldiers. The fort was a simple structure of wood and straw, with a small stone and tile house to store gunpowder.Duarte, Miguel Antônio de Oliveira. Torres - As Termópilas Brasileiras. IN Barroso, Quadros & Brocca, op. cit., p. 61 In 1801, Ensign Manuel Ferreira Porto assumed command of the garrison, considered the city's founder.Quadros, Stefânia de Borba. Ouvindo, Não Querendo me Envolver, me Envolvi e me Apaixonei. IN Barroso, Quadros & Brocca, op. cit., p. 121 With the creation of the captaincy's first municipalities in 1809, this area fell under the jurisdiction of Santo Antônio da Patrulha, becoming the Torres District.Barroso, Lucia Maciel Barroso. De Santo Antônio da Patrulha a Torres - Relações Litorâneas (1809-1857). IN Barroso, Quadros & Brocca, op. cit., pp. 70-71
Early urbanization No further records of the area exist until 1815, when the Bishop of Rio de Janeiro, Dom José Caetano da Silva Coutinho, whose diocese extended to this captaincy, passed through. At the request of some local ranchers, he authorized the construction of a chapel. In 1818, by decree of the Marquis of Alegrete, an area of 150 square braças was granted for the formation of a village and the building of the church, though construction began and soon halted due to the extreme poverty and disunity of the locals. The following year marked the arrival of Brigadier Francisco de Paula Soares de Gusmão, sent by the Count of Figueira, governor of the captaincy, to reinforce the fortification, which was again in ruins, and to inspect the Mampituba River bar and the northern coast to assess whether Spanish invaders could disembark there. Francisco concluded that a landing was impossible due to the absence of a natural port and the dangerous coastline for navigation. The Spanish threat, which had reemerged, did not materialize, and the fort lost its purpose. Francisco was ordered to return to the capital but, recognizing the site's favorable geographic position and its economic potential as a busy passageway to the Captaincy of Santa Catarina, requested to stay and establish the desired chapel to provide spiritual support for those within a 40-league radius who had to travel to Osório or Laguna for worship. With the request approved, the count ordered the start of the "Torres Settlement" in 1820 with some indigenous women from Taquarembó. Francisco arranged their marriages to white men and settled them in a village built on the banks of the Lagoa do Violão. He soon began work on the chapel and, before its completion, summoned Father Marcelino Lopes Falcão as chaplain. On Christmas 1820, the first mass was celebrated.Duarte, p. 61-62; 68-69