Morska Wola was a Polish settlement, located in
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 ...
, in the state of
Paraná. It was founded by the
Maritime and Colonial League
The Maritime and Colonial League (Polish: ''Liga Morska i Kolonialna'') was a mass Polish social organization, created in 1930 out of the Maritime and River League (Liga Morska i Rzeczna). In the late 1930s it was directed by general Mariusz Zarus ...
around 1934. The League purchased land from local Indigenous Brazilian tribes and carried out an extensive promotional campaign in Poland, trying to attract settlers. Morska Wola was divided into 286 plots, each the size of 25 hectares, and 62 municipal plots, the size of these was 100 x 60 meters. In the first half of the 1930s, the cost of settlement of one family was as high as 3,000
zlotys, out of which more than 2,000 zlotys was transportation. The first settlers left Poland in August 1935, and at the end of 1936. Some 75 families, around 350 people, lived in Morska Wola. In 1937 Morska Wola was inhabited by around 50% of its predicted population.
The idea was abandoned in 1938, when it became clear that those Poles interested in settling in
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
, preferred
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
or
Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
. Furthermore, the Brazilian government, worried that Poland planned to carve out part of the country, adopted an unfriendly attitude, which was a big handicap for Polish plans.
The Polish ship,
MS ''Morska Wola'' was named after the settlement.
She worked shipped lines from
Gdynia
Gdynia ( ; ; german: Gdingen (currently), (1939–1945); csb, Gdiniô, , , ) is a city in northern Poland and a seaport on the Baltic Sea coast. With a population of 243,918, it is the 12th-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in th ...
to South America before serving in Atlantic convoys during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
; she was scrapped in 1959.
See also
*
Brazil–Poland relations
Diplomatic relations between Brazil and Poland were first established in 1920. Over 800,000 Brazilians are of Polish descent making Brazil the second country with the largest Polish community abroad (after the United States). Both nations are memb ...
References
Brazil–Poland relations
Geography of Paraná (state)
Second Polish Republic
Settlement schemes in South America
History of European colonialism
{{ParanáBR-geo-stub