Gurupá or Santo Antonio de Gurupá is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

on the Amazon River in state of

Pará Pará is a state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas and Roraima. To the northwest are the borders of Guyana ...

northern Brazil The North Region of Brazil ( pt, Região Norte do Brasil; ) is the largest region of Brazil, corresponding to 45.27% of the national territory. It is the second least inhabited of the country, and contributes with a minor percentage in the national ...

located near the world's largest river island,

Marajó Marajó () is a large coastal island in the state of Pará, Brazil. It is the main and largest of the islands in the Marajó Archipelago. Marajó Island is separated from the mainland by Marajó Bay, Pará River, smaller rivers (especially ...

, 300 km upstream from the upper mouth of the river on the Atlantic coast. The city is a center for palm heart extraction and commerce. It is a municipal seat and major river boat port.

History

Gurupá is derived from the

tupi language Old Tupi, Ancient Tupi or Classical Tupi (also spelled as Tupí) is an extinct Tupian language which was spoken by the aboriginal Tupi people of Brazil, mostly those who inhabited coastal regions in South and Southeast Brazil. It belongs to ...

words ''guru'' (mouth) and ''pa'' (wide), and is associated with regions where water channels become wider. The word appears in the name of many localities in Brazil. Gurupá was founded in 1609 as a Dutch trading post that they called Mariocai, after the indigenous peoples living there. It was the third of three trading posts established by the Dutch along the lower reaches of the Amazon and

Xingu River The Xingu River ( ; pt, Rio Xingu, ; Mẽbêngôkre: ''Byti'', ) is a river in north Brazil. It is a southeast tributary of the Amazon River and one of the largest clearwater rivers in the Amazon basin, accounting for about 5% of its water. ...

s. The Dutch traded for dye, timber and mother-of-pearl. They also cultivated sugarcane along the Xingu river, to the south of Gurupa. It was subsequently conquered and occupied by the Portuguese in 1623, where they built the Fort of Santo Antônio do Gurupá (St. Anthony of Gurupá). It became the royal captaincy of Gurupá in 1633 in recognition of its strategic military and trading position. It was absorbed into Grao-Pará in 1756.

References

Sources

* Pace, Richard, & Hinote, Brian (2014). ''Amazon Town TV: An audience ethnography in Gurupá, Brazil''. University of Texas Press. * * Wagley, Charles (1953). ''Amazon town: a study of man in the tropics''. London, Oxford & New York: Oxford Univ. Press. * http://cidades.ibge.gov.br/painel/painel.php?codmun=150310&lang=_EN Municipalities in Pará Populated places on the Amazon 1609 establishments in the Dutch Empire {{Pará-geo-stub