Ponta Grossa

Ponta Grossa () is a municipality in the state of Paraná, southern Brazil. The estimated population is 355,336 according to official data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and it is the 4th most populous city in Paraná (76th in Brazil). It is also the largest city close to Greater Curitiba region, so within a radius of 186 miles (300 km) of Ponta Grossa.

It is also known as ''Princesa dos Campos'' (in English: ''Princess of the Fields'') and ''Capital Cívica do Paraná'' (in English: ''Civic Capital of Paraná''). The city is connected to the ''Caminho das Tropas'' (in English: ''Path of the Troops''), being one of the network of routes used by drovers (''tropeiros'') in the middle of a high hill inside a grassy vegetation. The city is considered of average size, located around a central hill, while most of its growth occurred in the second half of the twentieth century with the weakening of the primary economy.

Ponta Grossa is one of the largest tourist destinations in the Paraná, especially because of the area of natural beauty, Vila Velha State Park which is located within the limits of the municipality. The cup of Vila Velha refers to its location in the collective imagination. The München Fest, a party dedicated to German culture and also known as the Festa Nacional do Chopp Escuro (in English: ''Dark Chopp National Party''), is the biggest event in Paraná and usually lasts a week between November and December.

In this city, the industrial sector is fundamental (supported by agriculture). The city hosts the largest concentration of industry in the interior of Paraná. Agroindustry, lumber and metalworking are the major industries. The result is reflected in national GDP with the contribution from this city within the interior of Brazil, being only below Foz do Iguaçu. Municipal GDP increased over the state and national average between 2013 and 2019, this was also seen in the number of registered companies and employees.

Etymology

The place where it is located has a toponymia related to a hill seen long distance during trips to the Campos Gerais. The name would have originated from a high hill that stood out before the whole pastures landscape by its prominent height and the capo of bush that covers it. The tropeiros to refer to its location said that they were near Ponta Grossa. But other stories have the same idea, like that of the foreman when he tells the farmer the place chosen to establish his farm, "there at ''Ponta Grossa''". Or even that the name had seen later when the owner ceded the lands for settlement.

Ponta Grossa was founded on the farm of Miguel da Rocha Ferreira Carvalhaes who chose it as favorable agricultural land. The farm still exists towards Castro. In 1871 the city came to be called Pitangui, but the following year it resumed its original name. Sometimes it is the target of malicious humor due to what its name can send like in Portuguese. One way or another describes the characteristics of the vegetation and the regional topography.

History

According to the historian Paulo Eduardo Dias de Mello the earliest account of European activity in this area is of the ''tropeiros'' who travelled with their wares towards the fair of Sorocaba. Ponta Grossa served as a resting point since 1703 of the long voyages that left Rio Grande do Sul. Along the way was commercialized the charque, where the meat was preserved only with salt. Unlike other settlements, Ponta Grossa was not inhabited, indigenous groups occupied places to the north, with expansion, conflicts later came with European settlers, such as that of the city of Reserva, but outside the urban space of the city in question. Another version, but not necessarily contradictory, states that the farmers of the area would launch a couple of pigeons and where these birds would land would mark the beginning of the ''Freguesia'' with the construction of the chapel Mrs. Saint Anne.

Colonial Expeditions

Ponta Grossa had its territory traversed from the 16th century, when the Campos Gerais were crossed by Spanish expeditions that demanded of the Santa Catarina coast until Asunción, in Paraguay. Later it was successively moved on account of the '' seiscentistas bandeirantes'', notably for capture of the natives. Portuguese bandeirantes like Aleixo Garcia passed in 1525, five years later Peró Lobo and Francisco Chaves. In 1541 passed the Spaniard Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca who had some conflicts of tribes not too distant. Also, it is reported the passage of a non-Iberian: Ulrich Schmidel, a German mercenary in Spanish service, that during the course of his travels in the region brought 20 Paraguayan natives and four other mercenary German soldiers in Spanish service from the current paulista coast.

''Tropeiros'', people who used mules and donkeys to transport goods (normally called muleteers in English) used the region as a route, the landscape in the form of a field became welcome to pass with mules and in the future cattle ranching.

At a later point some former ''tropeiros'' settled in the area and began to farm. Much of the products from these new farms was used for the feeding of animals used by the muleteers. Other muleteers settled down and started farming because events like floods disrupted the distribution of their goods and so they had to take their losses and began new activities. Preferably, the ''tropeiros'' chose to settle near the banks of the Verde and Pitangui River.

These new farmers caused a need for trade which lead to the creation of villages. There were also settlements called ''freguesias''. The later is the word used originally to describe Ponta Grossa and other cities in the region.

The actual possession of the land, for purposes of occupation and colonization, which resulted in the founding of the city of Ponta Grossa, took place from 1800, about a century or more after the area began having regular visits from muleteers.

Beginnings of organized settlement

When the settlement first began the Campos Gerais were under the jurisdiction of Vila Nova de Castro.FERREIRA, João Carlos Vicente (1996). ''O Paraná e seus municípios''. Maringá: Memória Brasileira Publish Company. 535 pages

The first settlers who settled here were farmers from the state of São Paulo. They chose this area due to the abundance of natural pastures and the beauty of the Campos Gerais. They settled in the environs of the rivers Verde and Pitangui. Shortly after Benedictines of the Monastery of the Saints obtained grant of these fields, that called Santa Bárbara Farm. However, in 1813, the interim governor of the Province of São Paulo, D. Matheus Abreu Pereira, donated these same lands to the lieutenant Atanagildo Pinto Martins, a bandeirante from Paraná who traveled through and surveyed the way of the Fields of Palms. The Benedictines protested, claiming acquired rights, presenting the Term of concession, but nothing of value was worth the appeals, finishing the immense area in possession of ''bandeirante'' Atanagildo.

Fixed Settlements

It was not long before, and he was lord of the Campos Gerais, the Captain-General José Góes e Moraes. Along with Pedro Taques de Almeida (besides others of noble lineage) that required territories between the left bank of the Itarare River and the headwaters of the Tibagi River, they donated part of his lands to the Jesuits who in the vicinity of São Miguel Riverside, a tributary of the Pitangui River, erected the Santa Bárbara do Pitangui Chapel. where they established the Curato of the Company of Jesus that in no time knew extraordinary progress. But the route of the main road was diverted, causing a stagnation of the growth of the city where the first built chapel.

At the same time, the fields were systematically occupied, with the emergence of large cattle ranches.

One important project of this time was the Bom Sucesso Farm. It was established by sergeant-major Miguel da Rocha Ferreira Carvalhães. The farm covered the area that today constitutes the urban perimeter of Ponta Grossa.

Prior to 1750 when the Treaty of Madrid was signed, Ponta Grossa was in theory part of the Spanish Empire, but the Spanish do not seem to have exercised much actual cobtrol in the region. The Santa Bárbara chapel, constructed by Jesuit reductions to the control of the Spanish government was used by oratory by the ''tropeiros'' and travelers of Campos Gerais from 1727 by donation of sesmaria of Itaiacoca or the Pitangui. With the abolition of slavery, what did not continue with the catechization and slavery, even with religious groups that came later. Not far from the farm, in the 1970s human bones were found possibly from the slaves of the time.

Where today is the Metropolitan Cathedral, there was a ranch of inn, erected by ''tropeiros'', next to a centenary fig tree, under which they planted a cross. It was there the point of stop of troops and travelers. Another point of reference at this time was the ''Casa de Telhas'' (in English: ''House of Tiles''), constructed by the Jesuits for relate with people of the region. In this house were celebrated the offices of the sacrament and religious festivals. In a short time, around the ''Casa de Telhas'' appeared the first huts. In addition to serving as Church to hold celebrations was a place of rest. It is believed that the construction of the same was an attempt to press the elevation of Ponta Grossa, until then a neighborhood of Castro to a ''freguesia''. A cemetery and a chapel had also been built. It is he historic moment than the version of the pigeons appears for the choice of place due to divergence between the farmers, described in the sequence.

Domingos Teixeira Lobo, Antonio da Rocha Carvalhães and Benedito Mariano Fernandes Ribas were three early settlers who saw a need to give the settlement a clear legal distinction.

They felt this would solve the difficulties of ecclesiastical

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