History of Pernambuco

The history of Pernambuco begins since before discovery by the portuguese, with Indigenous populations of the Caeté and Tabajara indigenous peoples. The name has represented different entities at different times: a captaincy, a province, an independent Republic (briefly) and a state.

Pernambuco was a distortion of Tupi para-nã (wide river) + mbuka (hollow or broken), referring to the coastal reefs; it came to mean the place where the Brazilwood tree (Caesalpinia echinata) was found, and by derivation its wood, now called Brazilwood. Brazilwood trees, source of a brilliant red dye, grew in abundance on the Atlantic coast of Brazil, and were the chief trading commodity of precolonial and early colonial times.

The Brazilian northeast has some of the most ancient arqueological sites of the country, which date more than 40,000 years BCE. In the region that today corresponds to Pernambuco were identified vestiges of human ocupation from around 9,000 BCE in the regions of Chã do Caboclo, in Bom Jardim, Furna do Estrago, and Brejo da Madre de Deus. In this last region an important necropolis was found, out of which 83 skeletons were recovered.

Among the indigenous groups that inhabit Pernambuco, there's Itaparica who are responsible for stone instruments from about 4000 BCE. Cave paintings dated to around 0 BCE, attributed to the Cariris people. In the time of portuguese colonization the Tabajaras and the Caetés lived in the coast, but have since become extinct. In certain parts of the state it is still possible to find indigenous groups, like the Pankararu and the Atikum.

At the time of discovery of Brazil, the region of the modern state of Pernambuco near the Atlantic coast was populated chiefly by Tabajara Indians.

Years later, in 1516, Cristóvão Jacques was charged with patrolling the coast of Pernambuco against vessels of other nations. The feitoria (literally 'factory', a Portuguese trading post) of Cristóvão Jacques, erected at the entrance of the Canal de Santa Cruz, Itamaracá, aimed to establish a bond with the natives, seeking information about possible riches inland as well as repelling possible attacks by other nations on the Brazilian coast. The French under Bertrand d'Ornesan tried to establish a French trading post at Pernambuco in 1531.

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