Amazon Modern History

Manaus - an historical context

Local historians date the city of Manaus from 1657, when a working party of convicts were brought to the area and erected a cross on the banks of the River Tarumã, the first river one encounters going upstream from the current city. In 1669 a small fort, São José da Barra, was built near the site and beside a settlement of Manaó indians; and in 1695 the catholic church´s tentacles finally reached the area and its activities and infrastructure began to attract more settlers, although it wasn´t until 1755 that the settlement was officially recognised by the State and given the name Vila da Barra.

Interestingly, parallel development some 500km upstream from Manaus resulted in the establishment of the town of Barcelos, and it was in Barcelos - not Manaus - that the original naval presence was based; and  Barcelos - not Manaus - became the capital of the State of Amazonas. It was only some fifty years later in 1808 that the Vila da Barra was recognised as the capital (better location and a larger settlement by that time), and a further 50 years before the name was changed to Manaus, in recognition of the Manaós indians. The word Manaó means "Mother of the Gods".

Brazil´s independence came in 1889, when the province of Amazonas officially became a federal state, and by which time the rubber boom was attracting a much larger population. Manaus quickly became known as the "City of Rubber" and was the base from which speculators, politicians and entrepreneurs made staggering fortunes in a very short period. In the twenty years to 1910, huge civil works were planned and executed by the equivalent of today´s billionaires - the Opera House, the Rio Negro Palace, the Palace of Justice, the market, the port complex, a tram system, electric light, a sewage system, a water distribution system and so on.

Palace of Justice, Manaus	Old Customs House, Port of Manaus

But by the 1920s, it was all over bar the shouting. Rubber seeds smuggled out of Brazil (it can´t have been very difficult), were planted in Indonesia where the climate and the lack of (native) insects produced huge, profitable plantations. Demand for expensive Brazilian rubber declined dramatically and although there was later a resurgence of interest, the increasing quality and decreasing cost of synthetic rubber finally destroyed the industry.

After the boom came the bust, and Manaus suffered considerably until in 1967 the Federal Government created the Zona Franca, or free trade zone, which was extremely successful in developing a light industrial base for the whole of the Amazon region and also for a time turned the city into a centre for economic tourism, to which people from all over Brazil would flock to buy cheap imported goods. The Zona Franca is still in place today, and its economic and tax incentives have attracted major global manufacturers to establish plants for the production and/or assembly of a wide range of white goods, motorcycles and electronic equipment. These plants collectively are by far the largest employer in the whole of Amazonas.

While the history of Manaus may be relatively short and simple, the history of the Amazon region as a whole is complex and not necessarily that well understood. In addition to the disparate indigenous Indian tribal populations, there is evidence now being produced which suggests the existence of sophisticated and highly organised cultures in the Amazon Basin. European-led domination of the area directly involves the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Dutch, the English (and Irish(!)); whilst the greatest influence has inevitably been Portuguese either directly or following the colonisation of the south, by the often mixed descendents of Portuguese settlers.

Those with an interest in the wider history and cultural development of the region might sturggle, but there are a number of relevant books, including Amazon Town by Charles Wagley (Macmillan, 1953) and the follow-up study The Struggle for Amazon Town by Richard Pace (Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc, 1998). You might also look at the growing list of books for visitors posted on our forum here, and a useful brief overview can be found at AmazonGIS.