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The history of Bahia began with the arrival of the Portuguese in Porto Seguro and then with colonisation, the empire and the republic.
The official history of Brazil began in Bahia; history records that the discoverer, Pedro Álvares Cabral, landed on the shores of the region where Porto Seguro is today, on the southern coast of Bahia.
It is possible that the messenger ship sent by Cabral to tell King Manuel I about the new lands discovered (at first it was thought that an island had been discovered, which was baptised Ilha de Santa Cruz) travelled along the coast of Bahia from Porto Seguro to the north, before setting off across the Atlantic towards Portugal.
The first official records of the history of Bahia and the Salvador region, however, were made by the expedition of 1501; Américo Vespúcio, who took part in the expedition, was the first to speak of the bay which they called ‘ Todos os Santos’, as it was found on 1 November, All Saints’ Day.
The name ‘Bahia’ would spread to the territory that was formed with the lands of the hereditary captaincies donated to Francisco Pereira Coutinho, Pero de Campos Tourinho, Jorge de Figueiredo Correia, D. Antônio de Ataíde and D. Álvaro da Costa .
From the occupation of Salvador and its surroundings in the first two governments, there were very clear distinctions between Salvador (and the region bordering the bay, called the recôncavo) and the more distant interior.
Despite the excellence of the anchorage discovered in 1501, the Portuguese abandoned it in the first two decades of the colony’s existence, allowing the French to trade with the natives there.
This abandonment explains the surprise of Pero Lopes de Sousa, whose voyage dates back to 1530, when he found the legendary Caramuru in Bahia, who had been living among the savages since he was shipwrecked in 1510 or 1511.
It is possible that the messenger ship sent by Cabral to tell King Manuel I about the new lands discovered (at first it was thought that an island had been discovered, which was baptised Ilha de Santa Cruz) travelled along the coast of Bahia from Porto Seguro to the north, before setting off across the Atlantic towards Portugal.
The first official records of the history of Bahia and the Salvador region, however, were made by the expedition of 1501; Américo Vespúcio, who took part in the expedition, was the first to speak of the bay which they called ‘ Todos os Santos’, as it was found on 1 November, All Saints’ Day.
The name ‘Bahia’ would spread to the territory that was formed with the lands of the hereditary captaincies donated to Francisco Pereira Coutinho, Pero de Campos Tourinho, Jorge de Figueiredo Correia, D. Antônio de Ataíde and D. Álvaro da Costa .
From the occupation of Salvador and its surroundings in the first two governments, there were very clear distinctions between Salvador (and the region bordering the bay, called the recôncavo) and the more distant interior.
Despite the excellence of the anchorage discovered in 1501, the Portuguese abandoned it in the first two decades of the colony’s existence, allowing the French to trade with the natives there.
This abandonment explains the surprise of Pero Lopes de Sousa, whose voyage dates back to 1530, when he found the legendary Caramuru in Bahia, who had been living among the savages since he was shipwrecked in 1510 or 1511.
The captaincies on the central coast of Brazil offered no prospects of return, which is why they were destined for the less wealthy of the grantees; the captaincies that attracted the most attention were those in the far north (near the mouth of the Amazon) and the far south (near the mouth of the River Plate) and for the same reason: the rivers gave easy access to the interior of Brazil, where, it was thought, rich gold and platinum mines could be found, just like on the west coast of America.
For this reason too, the captaincies did not prosper; the grantees had few human, material and financial resources and depended on help from the Crown; the Crown, seeing no prospect of an immediate return, sent little aid to the captains.
To replace the failed regime of captaincies, King João III decided to set up a government-general, based in Bahia, which, although located at unequal distances from the extremes of the coast occupied by the Portuguese, offered good conditions for giving ‘favour and help to the other captaincies and for dispensing justice, providing for the affairs of the royal treasury and the good of the parties’.
Tomé de Sousa was appointed to carry out this policy. According to the regiment of 17 December 1548, he was to build ‘a fortress and a large and strong settlement in a convenient place’.
After violent wars against the Indians of Jaguaripe and Paraguaçu (1558 and 1559), the possession of Matuim and Passé was finalised.
The incorporation of the hinterlands into Bahia was not only completed with cattle droves and corrals, but also with wars against the amoipiras, acroás and paiaias Indians.
Religion also played an important role; Rome sent the first bishop of the Americas, Bishop Sardinha, to Salvador, and the religious missions of the priests of the Society of Jesus and the friars of St Francis and Mount Carmel contributed greatly to the civilising, productive and constant activities.
Another stimulus for settlement was the discovery of gold in the Serra de Jacobina.
In the 18th century, Bahia had 77,000 inhabitants. Accompanying the conquest of the territory on the one hand, and corresponding to Portugal‘s orientation on the other, four production zones were characterised:
- Recôncavo, for sugar cane;
- Jaguaripe and Camamu, for manioc flour;
- tabuleiros or areais, for tobacco and manioc;
- the hinterland, for cattle.
The main characteristic of the economy, not just of Bahia but of the whole of colonial Brazil, was that it was geared towards the foreign market, with the lands of Bahia placed as suppliers of raw materials and tropical farming items that were of interest to Europe.
Established under the conditions of the mercantile economy, the export economy was based on slave labour.
However, it developed in a varied and complex way, with a more extensive and more expressive list of articles and products, such as brazilwood, sugar, cotton, tobacco, gold, wood, raw leather, cachaça and flour.
History of Bahia in Colonisation, the Empire and the Republic
Bahia’s history is rich and multifaceted, reflecting the complexity of its cultural, political and economic interactions over the centuries.
From the Dutch occupation at the beginning of the 17th century, which challenged Portuguese hegemony, to the struggle for independence that moulded the national identity, each period has left its mark.
História da Bahia na colonização, império e república
During the Empire, Bahia stood out as an important political and economic centre, while the Republic brought new social and political dynamics, including the 1930 Revolution, which boosted the state’s modernisation.
Industrialisation, especially from the second half of the 20th century onwards, transformed Bahia’s economy, consolidating it as an industrial and tourist hub in contemporary Brazil.
This historical panorama reveals not only the struggles and achievements of the Bahian people, but also their resilience and adaptation in the face of challenges.
- Dutch Occupation
- Struggle for Independence
- Empire
- Republic
- 1930 Revolution and Modernisation
- Industrialisation
1. Dutch occupation
Serious events interrupted the tide of prosperity reigning in Bahia at the beginning of the 17th century.
Not only as a result of the union of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns (Spain forbade Brazil to trade with Holland), but also thanks to the greed aroused by the wealth of sugar, Holland decided to attack Bahia in 1623.
In May 1624, the squadron commanded by Jacob Willekens arrived in Salvador, with 26 ships and 500 guns under its command. The invaders easily occupied the city and remained there for a year, until they were repulsed by the Portuguese-Spanish armada commanded by Fradique de Toledo Osório.
Unhappy with the loss of the metropolis, the Dutch returned in 1638, when they were already firmly established in Pernambuco, taken in 1630 (see History of Pernambuco).
This time, the attack was led by Maurício de Nassau, who, having begun the siege on 16 April, withdrew, beaten, on 29 May. The Count of Bagnuolo commanded the defence.
It can be seen that the Dutch presence in Bahia was shorter and left fewer traces than in Pernambuco.
After the storm of these invasions, which seriously jeopardised local production, Bahia resumed its previous progress.
2. Struggle for Independence
At the end of the 18th century, there were 164 exporting and importing merchants in Salvador.
All the trade was destined for Europe, Africa, Rio Grande do Sul and the ports of the River Plate. However, in the political, social and economic structure that had been defined at the time, there were several conflicts between those born and living in the captaincy and the authorities who exercised government on behalf of the king of Portugal.
In the cases of the so-called Maneta riot (October 1711) and the Terço Velho uprising (May 1728), the insurgents failed to locate the main cause of Bahia’s difficulties and problems in its status as a colony; By the time of the sedition in 1798, known as the Bahian Conjuration or the Tailors‘ Conjuration, the condition of colony appeared as the main cause of the monopoly on trade, the fixed price for sugar, tobacco, cotton and sole, the extortionate collection of taxes, the tiny pay of the military, and there was already a demand for a political regime capable of guaranteeing equal rights for all, without distinction of colour or social origin.
Even after the headquarters of the Portuguese colonial empire moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1763, Salvador continued to stand out as a political centre of influence, where groups of patriots, military and civilians would end up starting the fight to separate Brazil from the metropolis.
These groups were involved in the 1817 rebellion in Pernambuco, and in February 1821 they promoted Bahia’s adherence to the constitutionalist movement, which abolished the absolute monarchy in Portugal.
However, as the liberal-constitutionalists in Lisbon were clearly opposed to Brazil’s interests, finally agreeing to the military occupation of Salvador by Portuguese soldiers and sailors (February 1822), the struggle for independence in Bahia evolved into a slow and painful war.
The conflict began with the ‘25 June’ in Cachoeira in 1822 and accumulated heroic episodes, among which the battle of Pirajá on 8 November 1822 stands out.
The year 1823 arrived with repeated and new battles in the Bay of All Saints and around Salvador.
Having quickly overcome the disagreement between the French military officer Pedro Labatut and the Brazilian soldiers in command of the army, Colonel José Joaquim de Lima e Silva, Viscount of Majé, ordered a broad offensive on 3 June that ended up forcing the Portuguese troops to withdraw.
On 2 July 1823, Bahia celebrated the Brazilian victory; to this day, 2 July is a public holiday in Bahia, celebrated with as much reverence as 7 September. When the fighting began in the province, the Bahian Maria Quitéria formed a women’s company, which fought throughout the war.
3. Empire
After the separation, Bahia’s support for the national demand to unite all the provinces into a single country did not prevent the federalist movements of 1832 and 1833, linked to the name of Captain Bernardo Miguel Guanais Mineiro, and that of 1837, better known as Sabinada, from the name of its leader, the doctor and journalist Sabino Vieira.
In its military aspect, the Sabinada lasted four months, extending into the hinterland (Feira de Santana and Vila da Barra), with some very violent fighting.
Other aspects of the instability of socio-political structures at the time were the various slave uprisings (the most serious was that of the black Muslims, the Revolt of the Males, in 1835), the circulation of counterfeit coins, and family feuds, examples of which were those that bloodied the São Francisco, between the Guerreiro and Militão families.
In 1843, the diamond regions of the Açuruá mountain range were discovered. Successive plans repeated the demand for efficient means of communication to the Recôncavo and the hinterland. Inaugurated precariously in 1819, steam navigation extended its lines to the river towns (Santo Amaro, Cachoeira, Nazaré) and the sea towns on the south coast (Camamu, Ilhéus).
In 1853, the government signed the first contract to build the Bahia-São Francisco railway, which, along with the Alagoinhas-Itabaiana, Central, Santo Amaro-Bom Jardim and Nazaré-Santo Antônio, formed Bahia’s railway network in the 19th century.
There was also concern about improving sugar cane cultivation and sugar production, and some planters introduced new qualities of cane and some mills adopted steam engines. An example of this is the large sugar mill that Francisco Gonçalves Martins set up in 1859.
As early as 1841, a company had been founded in Bahia to introduce useful factories. With the abolition of the slave trade and the subsequent decline in trade with Africa, many merchants associated their capital with the founding of banks, credit unions and insurance companies.
Accompanying this growth in economic activity, administrations generally sought to expand schooling opportunities and systematise teaching and education.
Nevertheless, the crises in the price of sugar on the foreign market, the competition that diamonds from South Africa began to pose in Lavras, the difficulties in adapting free labour to an economy that had been based on slave labour for centuries, the terrible health and hygiene conditions in the most concentrated urban centres and the lack of financial resources led the province to the vexatious situation that emerged in the great crisis of 1873.
Sugar prices did not compensate for the raw material consumed; commercial transactions were paralysed. Economic and financial decay was evident. However, it was in relative political tranquillity that Bahia took part in the abolitionist movement (1888) and the proclamation of the republic (1889).
4. Republic
In Bahia, the republic was proclaimed by Colonel Frederico Cristiano Buys on 16 November 1889. The province was governed by Councillor José Luís de Almeida Couto and the commander in chief was Alagoas marshal Hermes Ernesto da Fonseca, known for his monarchist convictions.
With the first news from the court on the morning of the 15th, monarchist, liberal and conservative politicians began planning armed resistance to the new regime. In anticipation, Colonel Buys summoned the republican leader Virgílio Clímaco Damásio to the fort of São Pedro, where he proclaimed the republic at six o’clock on the afternoon of the 16th.
Marshal Hermes also joined the cause, communicating his decision to the troops, especially after the Emperor and Princess Isabel left for Europe.
Counsellor Rui Barbosa, Minister of Finance in the provisional government, nominated Manuel Vitorino Pereira for the post of governor, to the detriment of Damásio. Vitorino, a professor of medicine and liberal federalist politician, was another Bahian who would later become President of the Republic.
Colonel Buys favoured the appointment of Damásio, the oldest republican leader.
Unhappy with the rise of the former liberals, remnants of the Conservative Party took part in events that led to Vitorino’s resignation in April 1890 and the appointment of Marshal Hermes da Fonseca to govern Bahia. This was followed by the drafting of the state’s first constitution, the indirect election of José Gonçalves da Silva, his deposition during the political crisis of November 1891, and the appointment of Rear Admiral Leal Ferreira.
It was a confusing phase, with the slow assimilation of monarchist politicians into the new regime, some of whom went on to occupy positions in the administration. The first directly elected governor was the doctor Joaquim Manuel Rodrigues Lima (1892-1896).
During the administration of his successor, Councillor Luís Viana (1896-1900), the bloody episode of Canudos took place, which revealed to coastal Brazil the painful situation of poverty and cultural backwardness in the sertão.
From the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th, the export economy advanced. Cocoa farming came to represent 20% of the state’s budget and contributed to the country’s overall exports.
In 1904, 141 factories and manufactories were registered, including 12 spinning and weaving mills, three shoe factories, 12 cigar factories and others.
The governments of Severino Vieira (1900-1904) and José Marcelino de Sousa (1904-1908) improved navigation and infrastructure. João Ferreira de Araújo Pinho (1908-1911) resigned amid political tensions. The state chamber, under José Joaquim Seabra, defied the federal government, culminating in the bombing of Salvador on 10 January 1912.
From 1912 to 1916, Seabra urbanised Salvador, while Antônio Muniz de Aragão (1916-1920) faced the sertaneja revolt. In 1920, Seabra tried to be re-elected, but faced strong opposition, resulting in the ‘war of the sertão against the capital’.
The government of Epitácio Pessoa decreed intervention in the state in February 1920. Bahia’s export-import trade, linked to various crops, was dominated by foreign companies.
During the First World War, trade was restricted and, after the 1929 crisis, exports of cocoa and other crops fell dramatically.
Bahia’s industrial park, although small, included nine textile factories and 16 sugar mills, while large areas of land were occupied by cattle ranches and the production of hides for export.
5. 1930 Revolution and Modernisation
In the 1930 elections, Bahia fielded the candidate for vice-president of the republic on the official ticket, former governor Vital Soares, but conspiracies had already been taking place in the state in 1929 during the Liberal Alliance campaign.
While passing through Salvador in April 1929, Juarez Távora had left instructions about the movement that broke out in October of the following year.
It is undeniable that Bahia resisted the 1930 revolution, which is why there was a kind of military occupation in the first two years of the decade.
With the intervention of Lieutenant, then Captain, Juracy Magalhães (1931-1935), the situation changed, so that his constitutional election really did correspond to a new political framework.
Juracy Magalhães gave support and encouragement to cocoa and tobacco plantations, industry and livestock farming, defining some of the planning perspectives that would be expanded in the 1950s and 1960s.
However, on 10 November 1937, Getúlio Vargas established the Estado Novo. Rejecting the coup, Juraci Magalhães preferred to resign the same day and return to the barracks.
With the Second World War over and Brazil returning to constitutional political institutions, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Democratic Union (UDN), in coalition, elected the liberal Otávio Mangabeira, a former foreign minister in the Washington Luís government, as governor.
Mangabeira took Bahia back to where it had been before the Estado Novo and introduced a programme of reforms.
However, modernisation only really began in the 1950s, when the state government pushed forward with economic planning and its milestones were the Landulfo Alves refinery, the Paulo Afonso hydroelectric plant and the Rio-Bahia highway.
Several campaigns led to increases in Petrobras royalties and tax incentives for industry.
6. Industrialisation
In the 1960s, Bahia experienced accelerated economic growth, driven by the creation of the Aratu Industrial Centre, focused on industries such as cement and metallurgy, as well as the promotion of agriculture in the São Francisco basin.
In the following decade, this agriculture was promoted by the São Francisco Valley Development Company (Codevasf).
One of the main figures responsible for modernising the state was the controversial Antônio Carlos Magalhães, who held prominent political positions and used his influence to attract investment to Bahia.
Industrial development received a major boost with the inauguration of the Camaçari petrochemical complex in 1978, which became a milestone in the local economy. During this same period, tourism began to establish itself as an important source of wealth.
In the 1990s, the cocoa plantation in the south of Bahia, an economic base of the state, faced serious difficulties due to the crisis caused by the witches’ broom, a plague that resulted in a significant drop in production and an increase in unemployment.
In 1997, the Companhia de Eletricidade da Bahia (Coelba) was privatised, marking an important change in the management of public services in the state.
Bahia.ws is the largest tourist guide to Bahia and Salvador.
History of Bahia – Salvador da Bahia has 450 years of history
