Cantagalo (), formerly spelled Cantagallo, is a city located in the east-central area of

Rio de Janeiro State Rio de Janeiro () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil. It has the second largest economy of Brazil, with the largest being that of the state of São Paulo. The state, which has 8.2% of the Brazilian population, is responsible for 9.2% of ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. The population is 20,168 (2020 est.) in an area of 749 km².Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística
Its elevation is .

History

Colonization of Cantagalo began in 1755, when

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

nobleman Manoel Henriques, Duke of Terso and a clandestine

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

miner, left the state of

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...

in search of unexplored riches. Henriques and his group erected a settlement on a small tributary of the Parahyba approximately northwest of

Rio Rio or Río is the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and Maltese word for "river". When spoken on its own, the word often means Rio de Janeiro, a major city in Brazil. Rio or Río may also refer to: Geography Brazil * Rio de Janeiro * Rio do Sul, a ...

and began exploring along the local rivers. It was originally known as after the nearby

Macacu River The Macacu River ( pt, Rio Macacu) is a river of Rio de Janeiro state in southeastern Brazil. Course The Macacu River is born in the Serra dos Órgãos at about in the municipality of Cachoeiras de Macacu, and runs for about to its junction wi ...

. By 1784, the settlement had grown to accommodate approximately 200 houses. This growth caught the attention of the Portuguese rulers of Brazil, who had a

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...

over gold exploration in the

colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state' ...

. By order of the

Viceroy A viceroy () is an official who reigns over a polity in the name of and as the representative of the monarch of the territory. The term derives from the Latin prefix ''vice-'', meaning "in the place of" and the French word ''roy'', meaning " ...

Luiz de Vasconcelos e Souza, several expeditions were sent in search of Henriques and his group. The town's current name (

for "

rooster The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adult m ...

crow") was inspired by the circumstances of his capture. A troop was about to return to their camp after a day of searching in vain around the woods, when a soldier heard the crowing of a rooster nearby and decided to further explore the area. One of Henriques's men was found in a clearing in the woods and, in exchange for his release, revealed the whereabouts of the rest of the group. Henriques was deported to Africa in dishonour. By 1786, the settlement's name had been officially changed from Sertões de Macacu to Cantagalo. In 1814, Cantagalo was officially recognized by Emperor Pedro I as a municipality and in October 1857, was officially elevated to the category of city. By the mid-19th century, the area's gold was played out and the settlement came to depend on agriculture. Corn,

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of ...

, and sugarcane plantations covered several acres of highly fertile land. Before the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Cantagallo was considered a rich fruit- and coffee-producing district and was connected to

via a 100-mile-long eponymous railway. Nowadays, the city's economic activities still revolve around agriculture, with the exploration of

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

and calcareous rock for the

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mi ...

industry also playing a strong role. Some of the largest cement manufacturers in Brazil have facilities in Cantagalo.

Notable residents

The financial journalist Jose Carlos Rodrigues was the son of a coffee planter of Cantagallo, and born there in 1844. Brazilian writer

Euclides da Cunha Euclides da Cunha (, January 20, 1866 – August 15, 1909) was a Brazilian journalist, sociologist and engineer. His most important work is '' Os Sertões'' (''Rebellion in the Backlands''), a non-fictional account of the military expeditions ...

, was born in Cantagalo on January 15, 1886. One of the city's districts is named Euclidelândia, in his homage.

Notes

References

* *

External links

City's official website
Municipalities in Rio de Janeiro (state) {{RiodeJaneiro-geo-stub