It is the second largest bay in the world (after the Gulf of Bengal) and the largest in Brazil. It covers 1,233 km² and has an average depth of 9.8 metres, ranging up to 42 metres, with visibility between 10 and 20 metres.
It gave rise to the name of the captaincy, the province and the current Brazilian state. However, the federal unit kept the letter ‘h in the noun, according to the spelling of the Portuguese language at the time.
To give you an idea of the size of the bay, it is roughly the size of the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second largest city.
Video documentary about the Bay of All Saints
History of Todos os Santos Bay
The wide and deep Bay enchanted navigators, pirates and colonisers, as well as attracting the interest of the Portuguese government because it was an excellent natural anchorage, a strategic defensive site, with pristine waters and fertile land.
It was named in 1501 when a Portuguese expedition, commanded by Gaspar de Lemos and accompanied by Américo Vespúcio, the Italian cartographer and writer who would give his name to the entire American continent, was sent to map the new lands discovered a year earlier by Pedro Álvares Cabral.
It was 1 November, All Saints’ Day in the Catholic tradition.
By custom, landforms were named after the saints of the days on which they were identified – and so the bay was given this name.
The strategic importance of Todos os Santos Bay, combined with the existence of hills and landforms to the east (a relief that allowed the medieval practice of fortifying cities), was decisive in Tomé de Sousa‘s later choice of the region to found, on behalf of the King of Portugal, the city that would become the seat of the first capital of the Portuguese colony – Salvador.
The cradle of Portuguese colonial civilisation in the Americas, Baía de Todos os Santos, was home to the largest export port in the southern hemisphere in the 16th century, From here, Bolivian silver and Brazilian sugar were sent to European cities, and the Port of Salvador was the one that received the most African slaves in the New World.
The bay is also culturally important, being a landmark for the founding of Salvador, Brazil’s first capital, and playing a central role in the formation of the Recôncavo Baiano, one of the country’s richest regions in history and culture.
The bay was a strategic point for Portuguese colonisation, serving as a natural port for the export of sugar and silver, and the place where most African slaves arrived during the colonial period.
Features of Todos os Santos Bay
Todos-os-Santos Bay is made up of three smaller bays:
- The first, which could be called Itaparica Bay, consists of the large and elongated Itaparica Island and the western coast;
- the second, which could be called the Bay of São Francisco, with its deltaic aspect, contains numerous islands (the largest of which is Ilha dos Frades);
- the third, which could be called Bay of Salvador, also has the appearance of an ancient delta and is located in the eastern part and is the most important, not only because of its greater depth, which allows deep-draft navigation, but also because it bathes the State Capital.
Many of its banks are low and have the typical vegetation of mangroves.
The most important of these is the Paraguaçu River, which descends from the slopes of the Baiano Plateau (Chapada Diamantina) and, after a 520-kilometre course, reaches the bay through a winding and steep valley.
The large Bay of All Saints is the natural communication route between the City of Salvador and the other centres of settlement in the Recôncavo, and its waters are often navigated by small steamers and sailing boats.
Islands in the Bay of Todos os Santos
The Bay of Todos os Santos was declared an Environmental Protection Area – APA Baía de Todos os Santos – by State Decree 7.595 (of 5 June 1999).
This includes the waters of the bay and its islands. It includes the municipalities of Cachoeira, Candeias, Itaparica, Jaguaripe, Madre de Deus, Maragogipe, Salinas da Margarida, Salvador, Santo Amaro, São Francisco do Conde, Saubara, Simões Filho and Vera Cruz.
Bahia.ws – Tourist guide to Bahia, Salvador and the Northeast
