Mazagão Velho is a district and town in the

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 ...

ian municipality of

Mazagão Mazagão ( pt, Município de Mazagão}, ) is a municipality located in the south of the state of Amapá in Brazil. Its population is 22,053 and its area is . Mazagão Velho located in the municipality of Mazagão is known for the Festival of S� ...

, in the state of Amapá. The town was founded in 1773 by refugees from the former colony of

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

. Mazagão Velho is known for the Festival of São Tiago which takes place between 16 to 28 July, and re-enacts the war between the

Moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or ...

and the Christians.

History

In 1769, the Portuguese colony of

in Morocco (nowadays called El Jadida) was abandoned. A total of 2,092 inhabitants of the colony were resettled, and 1,855 were sent to

Belém Belém (; Portuguese for Bethlehem; initially called Nossa Senhora de Belém do Grão-Pará, in English Our Lady of Bethlehem of Great Pará) often called Belém of Pará, is a Brazilian city, capital and largest city of the state of Pará in t ...

, Brazil where they arrived in 1770. In 1773, the town of Mazagão Velho was founded in the interior of Amapá to house the refugees. By 1777, only 343 had remained in Belém. The economy of the town was centred around rice and cotton production using

Amerindian The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...

slave labour Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

. The settlement did not prosper. The isolation in the middle of the Amazon rainforest, epidemics, and failed rice harvests led to a large part of the population leaving the town. In 1831, Mazagão Velho was removed from the list of villages. In 1841, Mazagão Velho became the capital of the municipality, however in 1915, the capital was moved to Nova do Anauerapucú which was renamed Mazagão Novo or simply Mazagão. Mazagão Velho became a district of Mazagão in 1960.

Festival of São Tiago

São Tiago Festival Mazagão Amapá Brazil 3

The Festival of São Tiago is held annually between 16 to 28 July, and re-enacts the war between the

and the Christians. The festival starts in church with a public

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

, afterwards the party and re-enactment of the battle spreads throughout the village. The festival attracted a crowd of 50,000 people in 2017. In 2020, the festival was cancelled for the first time in history due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, and a documentary about the festival was aired on television instead.

Transport

Mazagão Velho can be reached by the AP-010 road from

Santana Santana may refer to: Transportation * Volkswagen Santana, an automobile * Santana Cycles, manufacturer of tandem bicycles * Santana Motors, a former Spanish automobile manufacturer Boats * Santana 20, an American sailboat design by W. D. Sch ...

and

Macapá Macapá () is a city in Brazil with a population of 512,902 (2020 estimation). It is the capital of Amapá state in the country's North Region. It is located on the northern channel of the Amazon River near its mouth on the Atlantic Ocean. The c ...

References

Bibliography

* {{authority control Populated places in Amapá Populated places established in 1773 Tourist attractions in Amapá