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Rio de Contas, one of the oldest towns in the Chapada Diamantina region, stands out for its 17th century baroque architecture, preserved to this day. In 1745, at the height of the gold rush, it was planned as Brazil’s first planned town, reflecting the prosperity of the time.

Rio de Contas is home to communities of Portuguese descendants who preserve cultural traditions and usually marry only among themselves, living 1500 metres above sea level.

In another area, 1050 metres away, there are two black communities made up of African descendants.

The Rio de Contas municipal historical archive holds valuable documents, such as letters of release, ecclesiastical rulings and slave certificates, which provide a historical overview of the area.

The region’s rich flora has attracted the attention of researchers. In 1974, more than 100 English and Brazilian scholars carried out an extensive study of the local diversity, identifying more than 1100 species, more than 100 of which were unknown until then.

Imagens Aéreas de Rio de Contas na Bahia

Rio de Contas History at a glance

The colonisation of the Rio de Contas region began at the end of the 17th century, with escaped slaves settling on the left bank of the Contas Pequeno river, where the town of Brumado is today. This place quickly became a landing point for travellers from Minas Gerais and Goiás on their way to Salvador.

A road linking the São Francisco River Valley to the coast passed through there, which encouraged the founding of the village of Creoulos, where a chapel dedicated to Nossa Senhora de Santana was built, the foundations of which still existed at the beginning of the 20th century.

Going up the Brumado river, the São Paulo bandeirante Sebastião Raposo discovered gold in the 1710s, giving rise to the settlement of Mato Grosso, where the Jesuits built, according to tradition, the Church of Santo Antônio.

In 1715, the same Paulistas founded a new settlement downriver, where they built the Chapel of Nossa Senhora do Livramento.

In order to control the evasion of the quinto (gold tax) and disorder, the Count of Sabugosa appointed the Bahian explorer Pedro Barbosa Leal to found towns in the region.

The prosperity surrounding mining led to the creation of the parish of Santo Antônio de Mato Grosso in 1718, the first in the highlands of Bahia. In 1724, Viceroy Dom Vasco Fernandes commissioned Colonel Pedro Barbosa Leal to create the town of Nossa Senhora do Livramento do Rio de Contas. In 1726, it was made compulsory to set up foundry houses in the region.

The discovery of gold attracted bandeirantes from São Paulo and favoured the occupation of this part of the Chapada Diamantina.

In 1745, the town was transferred to a new location, called Vila Nova de Nossa Senhora do Livramento e Minas do Rio de Contas, making it easier to control the alluvial gold mines.

The town’s stagnation began in 1800 with the fall in gold production and worsened in 1844 with emigration to the newly discovered diamond mines in Mucugê.

However, the town remained active with the creation of the Casa de Fundição, which brought about the development of local jewellery and artisanal metallurgy.

The largest collections of the quinto took place after the town was created, and the municipality, rich in alluvial gold, expanded as far as the state of Minas Gerais. Even with the drop in production, Rio de Contas remained a stopover on the Camino Real, an important route to the south-west of the São Francisco River Basin and a passage for religious pilgrimages to Bom Jesus da Lapa.

In 1868, the district of Vila Velha was created, annexed to Vila de Minas do Rio de Contas, which was elevated to a town in 1885 and renamed Rio de Contas in 1931.

When the deposits were exhausted, the local economy diversified into handicrafts and coffee, sugar cane, cereals and tuber crops. New gold rushes took place in 1932 and 1939, temporarily renewing mining in the region.

Learn about the history of the formation of the city of Rio de Contas

The aim of this article is to analyse the process of formation of the city of Rio de Contas – BA in the 18th and 19th centuries and the regional connections that resulted in the production of the urban network and the territory.

From a methodological point of view, the analyses are based on a bibliographical review to provide a theoretical and conceptual foundation, and on documentary research carried out in the IPHAN collections and in the Rio de Contas Municipal Public Archive to gather historical data and maps on the formation of the urban centre.

With the systematised data, it was possible to attest that the city of Rio de Contas had its formation process associated with the colonial context of dependence on the Portuguese Crown, whose main economic activity was gold mining.

In its materiality, Rio de Contas reveals itself as an important case study for understanding the formation and development of cities in the 18th and 19th centuries in Brazil. The on-site analysis of the historic centre listed by IPHAN made it possible to identify the permanence and transformation of the urban form over time.

1. introduction

The municipality of Rio de Contas, in the state of Bahia, originated in the middle of the 18th century, at the height of gold mining in the region, and was the first urban centre that triggered the formation of the surrounding towns. Today, the municipality is part of the Chapada Diamantina identity territory. Figure 1 shows the location and current boundaries of the municipality of Rio de Contas.

Gold mining and the historical and economic context of colonisation have left their mark on the urban and rural areas of Rio de Contas. Although tourism promotion activities in the Chapada Diamantina currently focus on the natural environmental heritage, we believe that this work can contribute to understanding the formation and development of Rio de Contas in the 18th and 19th centuries and the role of this town in the history of urbanisation in Brazil. The first occupations of the Bahian h interland will be analysed through the advance of colonisation into the interior, with the actions of the Jesuits and bandeirantes, and the opening of the royal road and other roads, which increased the flow of people and goods after the discovery of the mines. This approach was essential to understanding the historical processes of the formation of this urban space.

From a methodological point of view, we first prioritised a literature review on the formation of urban centres linked to mining in the colonial period, in order to establish a conceptual theoretical basis. We then surveyed and analysed data made available by the local IPHAN team and the Rio de Contas Municipal Public Archive. In addition, we collected historical data relating to the Chapada Diamantina territory as a whole and, with this, we began sorting through materials that would allow us to delimit the urban network in which the city of Rio de Contas – BA is inserted, defining the spatial cut-out of the research.

Based on the data collected, it was also possible to produce cartographic material that helped to understand the territorial evolution and the political and commercial relations that existed in the regional context of Bahia. Primary data was also collected through fieldwork in the city of Rio de Contas, such as photographic records and on-site observations of the urban landscape. This final stage of the research made it possible to analyse the permanence and transformation of the urban form over time.

2. Formação de arraiais, freguesias e vilas no território de Rio de Contas

In 1681 there were already movements of flags in the hinterlands that today correspond to the territory of Rio de Contas. Native peoples who lived there were captured and others ended up fleeing, entering lands that were still unknown to the Portuguese. The bandeirantes therefore faced great difficulty in enslaving the native population, and this mobility through the backlands (2) produced important changes, as Vasconcelos describes:

From being a land of Indians, the sertão became a no-man’s land and a land of a few. The policy of settlements, cattle ranches and mining gave other features to the settlements, complemented by the creation of towns and parishes and the effective implementation of colonial power structures’ (2015, p.47).

The Jesuits played a leading role in the process of ‘docilisation’ and exploitation of the labour force of the native peoples, who were seen by the colonisers as friendly and possessing strategic knowledge of the territory. The religious arrived peacefully in the villages and, through faith, gained the trust of the native peoples and their adherence to the colonisers’ purposes. Because they knew the territory very well, the native population made it possible to expand the area explored by the bandeirantes.

The colonisation of the territory in question began at the end of the 17th century, when escaped slaves settled on the left bank of the Contas Pequeno river (now known as the Brumado river, a tributary of the Contas river) and founded the settlement of Creoulos (3). In a short time, the town became a stopover for travellers from Minas Gerais and Goiás who were heading towards Salvador along the road that passed through there. A chapel was built there under the invocation of Nossa Senhora de Santana, the ruins of which remained until the beginning of the 20th century (IPHAN, 2023).

Going up the Brumado River, Sebastião Raposo from São Paulo discovered gold in the 1710s and, in the vicinity of these mines, the arraial of Mato Grosso was founded, where, according to tradition, the Jesuits built the Chapel of Santo Antônio. The arraiais were initially characterised as temporary stopping places, considered camps when mines were found for exploration. Over time, they took the form of villages. In the 18th century, the term ‘arraial’ took on the meaning of settlement in the mining areas of the colony and was sometimes ephemeral in nature, as miners sought the easiest way to exploit gold, near streams and rivers (Fonseca, 2011). The village of Mato Grosso grew as a result of mining and, in 1718, the parish of Santo Antônio de Mato Grosso was created, the first in the highlands of Bahia.

During the colonial period, the patronage system was in force throughout the Portuguese empire. In this way, colonisation policy was linked to the presence of the Catholic Church in the formation of new urban centres. The obtaining of sesmarias was linked to the donation of parts of these lands for the constitution of the patrimony of chapels. In turn, the formation of urban centres respected the regulations of the Portuguese crown, but the establishment of chapels and parish churches also had to obey the rules of the Church (Fonseca, 2011). In the mining areas, the presence of the Catholic Church also served to support the application of the laws defined in the territory by the Portuguese Crown, insofar as the sharing of wealth through the payment of tithes was defended in order to achieve eternal salvation. The principles defended by the Church helped to minimise the high rate of smuggling attempts related to the production of wealth, since, in addition to the sanctions of the law, the population also feared divine punishments, preached in the services.

The Paulistas also founded another settlement in 1715, 12 kilometres downstream from the town of Creoulos, where the Jesuits built a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Livramento. The discovery of mines favoured the occupation of this stretch of the plateau and, on 31 October 1721, a Royal Charter was issued that allowed the exploitation of minerals in the region. As a way of controlling disorder and preventing the evasion of mineral wealth and the taxes levied by Portugal on the gold extracted, the then Viceroy of Brazil, Vasco Fernandes César de Meneses (4), commissioned the Bahian explorer Pedro Barbosa Leal to found towns in the region. In 1724, the settlement next to the chapel was elevated to the town of Nossa Senhora do Livramento do Rio de Contas (Pereira, 1940).

In the same year, 1724, the Count of Galveas (5) settled on the site that corresponds to the present-day town of Minas do Rio de Contas. On this occasion, by order of Archbishop José Botelho de Matos, the parish of Santo Antônio de Mato Grosso was changed to the invocation of the Blessed Sacrament of Minas do Rio das Contas, with orders to remove the chapel ‘s implements and goods (Pereira, 1940, p. 44-45).

Due to the need to control the alluvial gold mines more effectively and more closely, the colonial administration decided to relocate the village. Thus, in 1745, the old town was transferred to the new site, with the name Vila do Santíssimo Sacramento do Rio das Contas. There was also the precariousness of Vila Velha, since it was initially populated spontaneously and was very close to the watercourses, which left the population vulnerable during periods of flooding.

The conclusion was that the miners ‘ plea was true, because the town was far from the village and they had difficulties travelling, especially in winter, as well as being far from the officials to deal with issues that affected them or were related to the interests of the Royal Treasury (Vasconcelos, 2015, p.100).

This historical fact of the change in the urban site makes it easier to understand the current outline of the territory and the connections between Rio de Contas and the other towns. The distance from Vila Velha to the new Vila de Minas do Rio de Contas is currently 11.9 kilometres.

Analysing these developments in Rio de Contas, it can be seen that, as the urban site changed, new buildings were constructed to meet the needs of the local population, including the church of Nossa Senhora Sant’Ana and the church of Santíssimo Sacramento, which is currently the town’s parish church.

In August 1746, the new town already had around 30 houses built, as well as a church, under the invocation of Senhora Sant’Ana – erected with alms from the devotees – and a hospital built, according to the ombudsman of the southern district […]. In addition, the residents had already organised the brotherhood of Senhora Sant’Ana and the Ombudsman asked the royal authorities to approve its statutes, as well as sanctioning the church and hospital built on the new site of the village of Nossa Senhora do Livramento das Minas do Rio de Contas (Almeida, 2012, p.36). ).

When analysing the organisation of Portuguese colonial cities, it is essential to highlight the distinction between the upper city and the lower city, urban concepts applied in colonial occupations. This division refers to the urban occupation theories of the time and the influences of Spanish Cartesian models, especially in gold regions, which sought to establish an urban structure with a hierarchical logic.

These ideas highlight how Portuguese urban planning differed, adapting to the terrain and organising administrative and religious spaces at strategic points in the city. The upper city was often positioned in elevated areas, offering protection and wide visibility, while the lower city was developed in lower regions, favouring commerce and everyday interactions. This structuring not only reflected the search for territorial control, but also the intention to consolidate the presence and authority of the Portuguese Crown in the new lands.

The urban layout reflected the organisation of the city that was being shaped there, because at that time the city was planned (6). When allocating the main public buildings and choosing the location of the parish church, priority was given to the presence of squares or open fields in order to highlight them, and as usual, in accordance with the Constitutions of the Archbishopric of Bahia, the Catholic temple was built on higher ground in order to give visibility and demonstrate the power that the Church had in shaping the urban space and in the settlement process.

The Portuguese Crown developed a strategy for setting up cities in which it ensured the existence of main streets and the separation of a square for administrative logistics and another for religious matters with the allocation of the church. Pessotti & Ribeiro (2011) examine this strategy in Brazilian urban foundations and conclude that:

[…] the 18th century and the multiple Brazilian urban foundations of this period are characterised by a growing affirmation of regularity and orthogonality, by the assumption of squares as the generating elements of urban networks, and by the adoption of uniform architectural programmes, which would be reflected in Portuguese urban planning practice and theory in the 18th century. […] Among the determining factors in the structuring of Portuguese cities, the geography and topography of the land, the climate, the nature of the soil and the materials available for construction played a fundamental role’ (p.151-152).

Urban planning is directly linked to the intervention of the state/government in the construction of cities. When there is no such involvement, urban agglomerations develop without symmetry, and the demand for private investment prevails (Texeira, 1999). There were two accepted ways of thinking about a city: the first and simplest was the vernacular urban layout, the highest, designed to protect the territory with a wide view. Another type of urban layout is the erudite, which is executed with a regular layout based on idealisations of straight lines and geometric components, with the presence of technical experts in charge of drawing up this model. Pessotti & Ribeiro (2011, p.153) address this issue: which follows the natural path of the topography, taking as an example the cities of Portuguese influence that are allocated at the highest point, designed to protect the territory with a wide view. Another type of urban implantation is the erudite, which is executed with a regular layout based on idealisations of straight lines and geometric components, with the presence of responsible technicians in the elaboration of this model. Pessotti & Ribeiro (2011, p.153) address this issue:

The Portuguese city has always been planned and built with the site in mind, taking into account its physical and environmental characteristics. Even in cases where the plans were based on geometric principles, and where the physical characteristics of the territory could be considered less relevant, there was always a concern to adapt the plan, and its geometry, to the pre-existing features, whether natural or man-made. The Portuguese city is characterised by the synthesis of these two components, intelligently harmonising these two ways of building the city, which is the main characteristic of Portuguese urbanism.

It was more common to merge these two models, since in some locations it was difficult to follow the orthogonal layout due to the rugged topography. In addition, there wasn’t always enough skilled labour to organise the urban space and technicians were often only available in the wealthier parts of the colonies (Pessotti & Ribeiro, 2011). According to Teixeira:

The cities built by the Portuguese outside Europe are the result of a variety of influences and reference models, both vernacular and erudite, from different historical periods. Each city displayed a particular synthesis of traditional and erudite elements, depending on when it was built, how it evolved, or not, from other pre-existing urban complexes, and the different attitudes and political strategies that had led to its foundation. In most cases, the Portuguese urban structures built in the context of overseas expansion do not correspond to pure types of layout, and we see urban patterns of vernacular or medieval origin synthesised with Renaissance ideas’ (1999, p.215-216).

In the historiography of the city researched, there is evidence of the formation of a settlement that soon underwent a process of change of urban site, and this new site, the subject of this study, had, in practice, all the influence of a government that was concerned with the organisation of the city. Studying the formation of the urban layout in the 18th century, Pessotti & Ribeiro (2011, p.162) point out:

In the 18th century, many towns and cities were built in Brazil with absolutely regular and geometric plans, most of which were orthogonal, expressing the great themes of classical urbanism. These urban centres were rationally planned, with an overall structure, and the square took on the role of the centrepiece of the urban fabric. The beauty of the city was associated with the regularity of the layout and the adoption of uniform architectural models, to which all the buildings in a street or square, or even the entire urban centre, had to conform.

The characterisation of the urban space made by the opinion of the Cultural Heritage Advisory Council: historic cities, urban and architectural ensembles, describes well this territory of analysis and its listed urban site (see Figures 2, 3, 4 and 5):

The town of Minas do Rio de Contas, situated on the left bank of the Brumado River, once the Rio de Contas Pequeno, and crossed by two small streams, originated as a result of mining. It consists of just six streets, two squares, two churches, a typical 18th century Town Hall and Jail, three or four mansions and houses with ‘doors and windows’ (Reis Filho & Finger, 2016, p.89).

Figure 2 – Photograph of Praça Senador Tanajura: Igreja Matriz do Santíssimo Sacramento: Rio de Contas, BA (s./d.). Source: IBGE online library. Accessed on 14 November 2022.

Figures 3, 4 and 5. Set of houses belonging to the listed urban site in Rio de Contas – BA, 2022. Photos: Letícia Coêlho de Oliveira. ‘At this scale, we can see a typical colonial conformation in which the streets, blocks and plots are defined from the marking of the main squares’ (Oliveira, 2023, p.143).

In the colonial period, the creation of the royal roads, which were intended to link Bahia with Goiás, was decisive for the settlement and constitution of urban centres in the region under study, such as the parishes of Jacobina and Rio de Contas. The boundaries of the parishes of Jacobina and Rio de Contas were linked to the courses of the rivers and the royal roads along which the goods produced in the region were transported. The economic and political weight of the comarcas meant that they played an important role in the Portuguese crown‘s strategies to control and expand its territories. According to Vasconcelos, in the comarcas:

There was a specific administrative structure, whose occupants had authority and power, independent of the general government, and could even communicate directly with the king and his representatives on the Overseas Council. This characteristic of the administration for the mines had the primary purpose of guaranteeing the tax policy, an ingenious formula of the Portuguese Crown, which, faced with the itinerant mining activity, delegated exploration to private individuals, along with investments in material and slave labour, profiting from the surcharges levied on all activities and products’ (2015, p.32).

Figure 6 shows the probable route of the royal road that ran along the Paraguaçu River and its tributaries, demonstrating the historical relationship between roads and rivers that made the development of Jacobina and Rio de Contas possible. The road connects territories that are now cities that form part of the Chapada Diamantina-BA region. The red line shows the route that starts in the municipality of Jacobina, then Morro do Chapéu, then Lençóis, Andaraí (then Iguatú district of this municipality), Santa Isabel do Paraguasu, which today corresponds to Mucugê, until finally reaching Rio de Contas.

Figure 6. Province of Bahia and the course of the Paraguassú River Road, undated. Sources: MAP of the Province of Bahia to indicate the course of the Paraguassú road.

The roads were fundamental for the articulation of the counties in Bahia and served to connect the colonial territory. As such, the Portuguese crown ‘s main routes facilitated the conquest of new areas that had not yet been explored and the settlement of the population and the first cultivation of land. Studies carried out by Vasconcelos show that:

The auriferous region of Bahia was a point of convergence and intersection of roads that had already been opened and were yet to be opened, which were linked to various regions: the North (Piauí and Maranhão – the latter opened in 1698 by João de Lencastro); the Northeast (Sergipe, which at the time was part of the Captaincy of Bahia, Pernambuco, Paraíba and Ceará); the Centre-South (Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso; Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro) (2015, p.79).

The development of the Comarcas of Jacobina and Rio de Contas took place in conjunction with the rest of the interior of Bahia which, from the beginning of the 18th century, had the function of supplying Minas Gerais. Even with the discovery of gold in the region encompassing the territories of Jacobina and Rio de Contas, the Portuguese Crown administration suspended its exploitation until the mid-1720s in order to prioritise supplies to Minas Gerais, where mining activity was already important. There was also the need to take care of the defence of the territory of Bahia, due to the constant invasions by the Dutch. Vasconcelos ponders this:

Capistrano de Abreu maintains the same justification for the ban – real fears of foreign invasion. If the absence of auriferous exploitation in Bahia is true, it was short-lived in Goiás. In the 18th century, Bahia was as much agricultural and pastoral as it was mining (2015, p.73).

In the 18th and early 19th centuries, Bahia was responsible for the production of flour, tobacco, sugar cane and cattle that directly supplied the regions of Minas Gerais, but also the foreign market (Lins & Santana, 2017). When we look at the municipality of Rio de Contas, we notice that agriculture was the pioneering activity that later, with the discovery of gold, gained even more importance as it supplied the large population that settled there in search of mineral wealth. Due to its strategic location, Rio de Contas served as a passageway, as it was the shortest route to Minas Gerais, as well as a post for inspecting and taxing the gold collected. In this urban centre, buildings were built to support the flow of production and the administrative work of the Portuguese crown.

In this context, another labour force that was widely used was enslaved African labour. With little knowledge of the land and the mixture of people coming from different parts of the African continent, it was easier to enslave them. In addition, the enslaved had more technical knowledge to deal with the mining activity (Kok, 2004). The intense use of enslaved labour in mining produced a population made up mainly of African descendants, not only in Rio de Contas, but throughout the Chapada Diamantina. This reality would later justify the presence of many quilombos in this urban network, as a result of the escapes undertaken by the enslaved.

Some of the urban sites that make up this network have their origins in the quilombos that settled there at the height of the gold cycle. The relationship between the remaining quilombola communities and the land still exists today in the rural areas of the municipality of Rio de Contas – BA, such as the districts of Barra and Bananal. In the quilombola territories, the cultural expressions of Afro-descendants can still be seen, whether through the way they celebrate, the typical foods or even the construction techniques that are reproduced in the architecture (Lins & Santana, 2017).

Examining the process of the formation of urban centres and the changes in their status, from arraiais to cities, shows the constitution of a network, permeated by disputes over political and economic power. In this sense, a hierarchy will soon be established between the urban centres that make up the Chapada Diamantina network. Economic activities and political weight gave these locations a different degree of importance over time.

In the first settlement centre of Minas de Rio de Contas, known as Vila Velha, the occupation process took place spontaneously, in order to quickly meet the mining demand. This phase was also marked by the presence of supply farms, so the small urban centre functioned as a support for the surrounding residents.

Our understanding of the formation process of Minas de Rio de Contas was based on analysing textual documents and historical cartographies from the period covering the mid-18th and early 19th centuries. In the territory that corresponds to the original town of Minas de Rio de Contas, a regional urban network was formed with the discovery of diamonds between 1817 and 1818, reaching its peak of exploitation in 1844. As the following excerpt from Theodoro Sampaio ‘s travel diary notes on the discovery site makes clear:

It was there that the presence of diamonds in the auriferous gravel was probably first noted in these hinterlands, since there, at the headwaters of the Rio de Contas, the terrain is as auriferous as it is diamondiferous. However, tradition has it that the first discovery of diamonds on the plateau only took place in 1817 or 1818, when Captain Major Felix Ribeiro de Novaes, researching the Serra do Gagau, managed to gather some of these precious stones, which he presented to Colonel Joaquim Pereira de Castro, but kept secret because extraction was forbidden at the time.’ (Santana, 2002, p.258).

During an expedition to the Province of Bahia in mid-1879, Theodoro Sampaio drew up a set of maps and drawings that depict what the Chapada Diamantina territory looked like at the end of the 19th century. This is fundamental material for understanding the articulation of the existing urban networks. On the maps he drew up, the gold and diamond mining sites and the roads that were travelled for exploration are demarcated. The farms that supplied the region are also located, as are the features of the relief and the respective names of the peaks.

Figure 7 shows a cartographic representation drawn up by Theodoro Sampaio, in which the distance between Vila Velha and Minas do Rio de Contas is more clearly visualised. The drawing also shows the rivers and the mountainous terrain, as well as the areas of gold exploration and their respective demarcations: Pico de Mato Grosso, Minas de Rio de Contas and Vila Velha. A mountain wall is situated between the territories of the two urban centres, connecting Pico das Almas with the Serra da Villa Velha.

Figure 7. Cartographic representation of the area in which Vila Velha and Minas de Rio de Contas are located, made by Theodoro Sampaio on an expedition to Bahia in mid-1879. Source: IGHB – BA Archive.

3. Transformations in the colonial urban space of Bahia and Minas de Rio de Contas

The evolution of the urban centre was marked by countless transformations to accommodate the political and economic interests of the Portuguese Crown. Thus, the way in which the new urban centre was structured seems very similar to the urban morphology of other 18th century Portuguese-Brazilian towns, when you look at characteristics such as the division of plots, the layout of the streets and the arrangement of the town centre, with the presence of the parish church and public buildings strategically placed there. Pessotti and Ribeiro (2011, p. 76), in their study of colonial cities in Bahia, reveal how this procedure was carried out and the agents who made this urban organisation possible:

The ombudsman summoned the inhabitants of the town and neighbouring villages by public notice to stand in front of their retirement homes on the exact day from seven to eight in the morning to accompany him. Everyone went to the place and site that had been cleaned, measured, demarcated for the square, with the streets already laid out, and prepared with arches and festive decorations, where the ombudsman raised the pillory and acclaimed the town.

This urban occupation strategy confirms the Portuguese Crown ‘s concern with organising them to suit its interests, aiming for an urban quality that is still reflected today in the peculiar characteristics of these historic urban centres.

The layout of the squares, streets and lanes and their measurements were ‘well explained, individually and with their names’ in the book of provisions of the Correição. Needle and rope makers were appointed, as well as bush pickers, all of whom lived in the area, to take the measurements. They had to present their measurements, needle and rope for the minister to check that they were correct and within the standard (Pessotti & Ribeiro, 2011, p. 76).

This type of change had a direct impact on the urban layout that is still known today in the urban sites of colonial Brazil, and Rio de Contas is no different. Decisions taken at the general level of the colony had an impact on the new spaces built, just as they influenced the move of the capital from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. The Marquis of Pombal (7) was an important agent in shaping the urban space of colonial Brazil, since his actions had a general impact on the territory. According to Pombal’s vision for Brazil, royal authority should be expanded by increasing the number of towns in the interior of the colony and integrating them into a programme that sought to take advantage of the potential of the territories (Delson, 1997, p. 49).

[…] within these actions carried out by the Pombaline Project, urban centres were created, more precisely villages, to fix the inhabitants to the soil. Therefore, the creation of these towns took place within a broad political programme. It was not an isolated event and was not directed solely at Brazil’ (Pessotti & Ribeiro, 2011, pp. 69-70).

Pombal’s aims for Brazil were to consolidate the occupation of the territory and unify it, coinciding with the period in which the gold mines were beginning to decline. It was therefore necessary to look for other ways of obtaining wealth. During the Pombal period, in addition to founding new towns, Portuguese administrators were pressured to ‘civilise’ the localities. The recommendations for remodelling the existing urban centres included adopting a regular urban layout according to the ‘customary model’, so that the place would take on ‘the characteristics of a well-founded village’ (Delson, 1997, p. 53).

The move of the capital from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro and the events that took place during the period of Pombaline interventions had their positive and negative points for the territory of Bahia and, more specifically, for Rio de Contas, which at the time was classified as a village. One positive aspect was the union of captaincies with the centralisation of orders and demands by the captaincy of Bahia.

Within this Portuguese project, the captaincy of Bahia stands out. On the one hand, it lost its position as the capital of the Viceroyalty, and on the other, it had the former captaincies of Ilhéus and Porto Seguro incorporated into its territory. It also included part of the northern Espírito Santo captaincy and the whole of Sergipe. Judicial districts and ombudsmen positions were created, and Bahia now had, in addition to the Southern Judicial District, or Jacobina, and the Northern Judicial District, or Sergipe, those of Ilhéus, Porto Seguro and Bahia proper, some of which were created at the time (Pessotti & Ribeiro, 2011, p. 72).