t The turquoise waters of Morro de São Paulo bay dotted with boats
t The turquoise waters of Morro de São Paulo bay dotted with boats
Experience Bahia
Heavily populated in pre-Columbian times, Bahia is home to only small indigenous communities today – notably the Atikum and Pataxó – most having been wiped out by disease in the years after European colonization in the 16th century. Bahia was where Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral had his fateful first sighting of Brazil in 1500. His fellow countrymen rapidly settled the coast thereafter: Porto Seguro was founded in 1526, Ilhéus in 1534, and Salvador in 1549. Southern Bahia became home to cocoa plantations – the state still produces two-thirds of Brazil’s cocoa – while the Recôncavo region was dominated by sugarcane and tobacco plantations, worked by enslaved Africans.
The strange, sad story of the town of Canudos, founded in 1893 by Messianic religious leader Antônio Conselheiro, also unfolded in Bahia. Attracted by his enigmatic personality and message of equality, thousands of impoverished laborers and indigenous people flocked to the town. Fearing a major insurrection, the central government sent in the army in 1897. The resulting annihilation of Canudos, with up to 30,000 possible deaths, was one of Brazil’s bloodiest conflicts.
The first half of the 20th century saw cocoa plantation owners continuing to fight each other for dominance, a bloody struggle chronicled by Bahian novelist Jorge Amado in The Violent Land. Beginning in the 1950s, Bahia harnessed the mighty Rio São Francisco’s hydroelectric potential, finally sparking industrial development in the state. As a result, although cocoa remains important, Bahia is today also home to major petrochemical plants and a car manufacturing industry.