Administrative evolution Amazonas was originally the captaincy of São Jose do Rio Negro, then a District of Grão-Pará, which became a province and finally a state of Brazil. • 1616 – Captaincy of Maranhão begins westward expansion • 1751 – Maranhão reconstituted as state of Grão-Pará e Maranhão • 1755 – Captaincy of Rio Negro split off • 1757 – Captaincy of Rio Negro rejoined • 1772 – Grão-Pará e Rio Negro split from Grão-Pará e Maranhão. • 1775 – Captaincy of Grão-Pará of state of Brazil. • 1821 – Province of Pará • 1822 – Pará province of independent Brazil. • 1832 – Creation of Judicial District of the Upper Amazonas, under Pará. • 1850 – Province of Amazonas split from Pará • 1889 – State of Amazonas Capital • 1755 – Village of São José do Javari; it became the vila Maryua • 1758 – Maryua is elevated to a town and called Barcelos • 1788–1799 – Capital moved to Barra do Rio Negro; • 1799–1808 – The capital was again in Barcelos • 1808 – Barra do Rio Negro the capital, renamed Manaus in 1832
Rise of the rainforest At one time the Amazon River flowed westward, perhaps as part of a proto-Congo (Zaïre) river system from the interior of present-day Africa when the continents were joined as part of western
Gondwana. Fifteen million years ago, the Andes were formed by the collision of the
South American Plate with the
Nazca Plate (eastern Pacific oceanic) plate. The rise of the Andes and the linkage of the Brazilian and Guyana bedrock shields, blocked the river and caused the Amazon to become a vast inland sea. Gradually this inland sea became a massive swampy, freshwater lake and the marine inhabitants adapted to life in freshwater. For example, over 20 species of stingray, most closely related to those found in the Pacific Ocean, can be found today in the fresh waters of the Amazon. About ten million years ago, waters worked through the
sandstone to the west and the Amazon began to flow eastward. At this time the Amazon rainforest was born. During the Ice Age, sea levels dropped and the great Amazon lake rapidly drained and became a river. Three million years later, the ocean level receded enough to expose the Central American
isthmus and allow mass migration of mammal species between the Americas. The Ice Ages caused tropical rainforest around the world to retreat. Although debated, it is believed that much of the Amazon reverted to
savanna and
montane forest. Savanna divided patches of rainforest into "islands" and separated existing species for periods long enough to allow genetic differentiation. A similar rainforest retreat took place in Africa, where Delta core samples suggest that even the mighty Congo watershed was void of rainforest at this time. When the ice ages ended, the forest was again joined, and the species that were once one, had diverged significantly enough to be designated as separate species, adding to the tremendous diversity of the region. About 6,000 years ago, sea levels rose about 130 meters, once again causing the river to be inundated like a long, giant freshwater lake.
Native peoples The
pre-Columbian Amazonas was inhabited by seminomadic peoples whose livelihood mixed occasional agriculture with a fishing and
hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Because of Christopher Columbus' misunderstanding of the continent at which he had arrived, the native population were and are denominated "índios" by the Portuguese. Approximately two thousand Indian tribes lived in the region in the sixteenth century, perhaps amounting to some millions of people, but phenomena such as disease and assimilation to Brazilian culture caused their numbers to fall to approximately three hundred thousand, and two hundred tribes, by the end of the twentieth century. Certain
uncontacted tribes still exist in the region.
Colonial conflicts In the colonial time, the territory which today belongs to the State of Amazonas, was a combination of treaties, expeditions, evangelism and military occupations. Scarce but recorded claims and indigenous uprisings in the region, were initially made by the
Spanish Empire through the
Treaty of Tordesillas and after the
Portuguese Empire by the
First Treaty of San Ildefonso. The State also includes territory from failed attempts at colonization by the European powers, such as
England and the
Dutch empire. The first Spanish expedition was by
Francisco de Orellana in conjunction with Catholic priest
Gaspar de Carvajal, who documented the expedition. He reported a conflict against indigenous women which led to the current name of the river, and then to the current name of the region and the state (Amazonas in English:
Amazons). The second Spanish expedition was by
Pedro de Ursúa, intending to prove the previous expedition, but resulted in the
Spanish Kingdom dropping the attempt to colonize the region. After the unification of the
Iberian kingdoms,
Portugal launched an expedition on the river [but in reverse from Francisco de Orellana, at the mouth of the river to the site of the present-day city of
Quito, capital of
Ecuador], with the intention of attaching
Spanish lands (comprising the current territory of the
Brazilian Amazon) to the
Portuguese Kingdom. After the dissolution of the
Iberian Union,
Portuguese and
Spanish possessions in the region were undefined, resulting in internal conflicts in the region between
Portugal and
Spain. The
Portuguese Crown later asserted the principle of
uti possidetis, with respect to the region. This was the first assertion of the principle from Roman law of
uti possidetis, ita possideatis, (Latin, "who has possession, has dominion"), analogous to English common law
"Squatters rights". Due account may have been taken of John Locke's labour theory of property. Conflicting issues arose between what was granted by law in the
Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), and the subsequent reality of colonial expansion: the Spanish, eastward from the
Pacific coastal plains (though restrained by the
Andes), and the Portuguese, westward (aided by the waterways and lowlands of the mighty Amazon). The
Treaty of Madrid (13 January 1750) – that determined the border between the Spanish possessions and southern Portuguese Brazil – had first enunciated the principle that new states, at the time of their creation shall have dominion over the lands that were settled as colonies. It implicitly opened the door to claims by prior possession in the vast lands of the north. After the independence of
Brazil in 1822, the current borders of the Amazonas State were still undefined – at that time being with
Gran Colombia. The internal conflicts within that neighbour country resulted in the emergence of
Colombia,
Ecuador,
Venezuela and
Panama. Brazil signed the
Treaty Vásquez Cobo–Martins (1908) (with those countries) finally entitling those possessions in the north to Brazil. One region is marked by the geodesic line Apóporis-Tabatinga; and the other is the municipal area of
São Gabriel da Cachoeira, on the
Brazil-Colombia border.
Spanish conquistadors and Jesuits , explorer who visited the
Amazon River By the
Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), the whole Amazon basin was in the area of the Spanish Crown. The mouth of a great river was explored by Spanish
conquistador Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, who reached it in February 1500, with his cousin
Diego de Lepe. He called the river
Río Santa María de la Mar Dulce (River of Saint Mary of the Sweet Sea) on account of the large freshwater estuary extending into the sea at its mouth. In 1541, Spanish
conquistadores Gonzalo Pizarro and
Francisco de Orellana, from
Quito, Ecuador, crossed the
Andes Mountains and explored the course of the river to the Atlantic Ocean. The indigenous people called this river the
Conoris. The myth of women warriors on the river has spread in the accounts and books, without any popular scope, still making those regions to receive names of warriors of Greek mythology, the Amazons — among them the largest river in the region that became known as the Amazon River. Early publications, as was the style of the day, called the river after its European explorer, the
Orellana. Also in the 16th century, there were the expeditions of
conquistadores Pedro de Ursúa and
Lope de Aguirre in search of the legendary
El Dorado, the Lost City of Gold (1559–1561) Spanish
Jesuit missions were the first settlements upstream on the Amazon. As many as 30 missions were founded in Amazon territory, seven in Brazil, between 1638 and 1727. The municipality of
Silves on an island of Lake Saracá is one of the oldest in the Amazon, originating in a
Mercedarian Indian mission founded in 1663. By the early 18th century, they were destroyed by the Portuguese, depopulated by smallpox, or their indigenous residents taken away as slaves by Portuguese Bandeirantes. A few were taken over by Portuguese Carmelites. The destruction of the missions was the end of Spanish claims in western Amazonia. Only one is a populated place today, San Pablo, now the municipality of
São Paulo de Olivença.
English, Dutch and French outposts Starting about 1580, without effective occupation, English, Dutch, French (and even some Irish) searching for so-called
Drogas do Sertão (spices of the backlands) had established some outposts upstream of the mouth of the Amazon.
Portuguese usurpation was first headquarters of the captaincy of São José do Rio Negro. From at least the time of the Tordesillas Treaty in 1494 until the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, the region of the upper Amazon was part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru (
Viceroyalty of New Granada after 1717). Everything north of the Amazon (Solimões) and west of the
Nhamundá River (Yamundá, in Spanish), an affluent of the left bank of the Amazon that forms the boundary of Amazonas with Pará, was known as Spanish Guyana. Portuguese expansion westward and northward of the Tordesillas Line began from the frontier of the northernmost
captaincy of Maranhão with the expulsion of the French from
São Luis in 1615, and the founding of
Belém at the mouth of the Amazon in 1616. Exploration and colonization thence followed the waterway upstream. There are accounts of Portuguese
Carmelite missionaries active in the Solimões area, upstream of the Rio Negro, as early as the 1620s, but permanent settlements weren't established for another 80 years, so the records are nebulous. The first documented Portuguese foray into upper Amazonia was the expedition of Portuguese explorer and military officer
Pedro Teixeira, who followed the great river from the Atlantic Ocean to Quito, Ecuador with 70 soldiers and 1,200 Indians in forty-seven great canoes (1637–1639). He returned by the same route, arriving back in Belém in 1639. According to the Portuguese, Pedro Teixeira placed a possession marker at the upper
Japurá River in 1639. Soon after that the Portuguese
bandeirante António Raposo Tavares, whose
bandeira, leaving the
captaincy of São Vicente travelling overland, reached the Andes, and following the Amazon River, returned to Belém, visiting a total of about , between 1648 and 1651. Tropical jungle is hostile and impenetrable as well as European settlements were exclusively along the waterways. Portuguese expansion generally was east to west, and from the main channel, the Solimões, north and south along the tributaries. The character of the settlements was of three kinds: defense and occupation (
fortes), economic (
feitorias), and evangelical (
missões). The first permanent Portuguese settlements in the region were Itacoatiara 176 km east of Manaus, founded in 1655 by Portuguese Jesuit Padre
António Vieira as Mission of Aroaquis on the island of
Aibi near the mouth of
Lake Arauató, followed by
São Gabriel, founded in 1668 as by Franciscan Friar Teodózio [or Teodósio] da Veiga and Captain
Pedro da Costa Favela on the Rio Negro, near the mouth of the
Rio Aruím. In 1761, a fort was built on the location, and the settlement became the town of
São Gabriel da Cachoeira. The first missionary
aldea of the Portuguese in the Negro was that known as Santo Elias dos Tarumas (originally aldeia of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, and later called Airão), dating from 1692. the capital Manaus, was founded in 1669 as the Fort of São José do Rio Negro (later called Lugar da Barra do Rio Negro or "place on the shore of Rio Negro") on the confluence of the Rio Negro and Solimões Rivers. The Royal Charter of 1693 divided Amazonia among the Jesuits, Carmelites, Capuchines and Franciscans: the Jesuits restricted their activities to the south bank of the Amazon upstream to the mouth of the Madeira; the north shore of the Amazon as far as the Trombetas fell to the Franciscans, to the mouth of the Rio Negro to the Mercedarians, and the Negro itself and the Solimoes to the Carmelites. The Portuguese Carmelites got a later start than the Spanish Jesuits, but their impact was more durable. Between 1697 and 1757, they established eight missions on the Solimões and nine on the Rio Negro. In addition, there were a few Portuguese Jesuit missions in the Solimões. In 1731, Portuguese Jesuits received orders from the Governor Luiz de Vasconcellos Lobo to establish two
aldeias above the mouth of the Rio Negro, one on the right bank of the Orellana
Solimões, between the eastern mouth of the
Javari and the Carmelite
aldeia of São Pedro; the other at the western mouth of the great river Japurá. This was the beginning of what came to be called the
Jesuit–Carmelite War. Antidote to settlement was disease: fierce smallpox epidemics in 1661, 1695, 1724, and 1743/49 left the region nearly depopulated. A Carmelite Friar had notable success with the method of
variolation in 1729, but the technique was not propagated. The Jenner cowpox vaccine was not introduced in Brazil until 1808. Variolation was prohibited in 1840, and vaccination was mandated in 1854. But epidemics got worse until finally petering out around the turn of the century. Within the project of occupying the Amazon hinterland, was formed the royal
captaincy of São José do Rio Negro subordinate to Para, in Mar. 1755, with headquarters in the village of Mariuá, (now Barcelos).
The borders of Brazil The boundary between the Portuguese and Spanish domination of the Amazon was eventually fixed at the Rio Javari (river that rises on the border between Amazonas state, Brazil, and Loreto department, Peru) by the Treaty of Madrid in 1750. By the mid-18th century, the effective boundary between the two empires, the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru and Portuguese Brazil, had shifted to the area of the confluence of the Rio Negro and Amazon Rivers, in upper Amazonia. While the Treaty of Madrid in 1750 implicitly recognized the principle of
uti possiditis, it did not actually specify the northern borders of the country. At that time, the border of contention between Spanish and Portuguese domains was in the upper Solimões, at the junction of the Rio Negro. In the upper Salomoes, Spanish missionary influence was being displaced, and the Viceroy was indifferent to colonization, but Portuguese settlements were not yet established. Part of the northern boundary between Brazil and what was then British Guyana, was set by the Spanish Boundary-line Commission of Yturriaga and Solano (1757–1763). After two indecisive wars between Portuguese and Spanish colonial forces 1761–1763 and 1776–1777, the border between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions, the Viceroyalty of Peru (and successor states) and Grão-Pará region of Brazil, was set between 1781 and 1791 by negotiation.
Age of rebellion In 1821, Grão-Pará and Rio Negro provinces became the unified
Grão-Pará. The following year, Brazil proclaimed its independence and Grão-Pará became the province of Pará of state of Brazil. When Emperor Pedro I declared independence from Portugal, in 1822, he had to fight also the provinces of Grão-Pará and Maranhão. In 1823, a ship commanded by British officer
John Pascoe Grenfell arrived at the
port of Belém, to combat rebels. Only in August 1824 did the new governor swear loyalty to the Brazilian Emperor. The
Province of Pará, including the
comarca of Rio Negro, the upper Amazon region, was incorporated into the Empire of Brazil in 1824. A revolt in 1832 demanded the autonomy of the Amazonas region as a separate province of Pará. The rebellion was suppressed, but the Amazons were able to send a representative to the Imperial Court, Friar
José dos Santos Inocentes, who got up the creation of the District of the Upper Amazon. During
Cabanagem in 1835–40, the Amazon remained loyal to the imperial government and not joined the revolt. As a sort of reward for loyalty, the
Province of Amazonas was officially created by Emperor
Pedro II in 1850.
Rubber and economic exploitation From the mid-19th century, the territory began to receive migrants from the northeast seeking a better life. Attracted by the rubber boom, they settled in important Amazonian cities such as Manaus, Tabatinga, Parintins, Itacoatiara and Barcelos, the first capital of Amazonas. The state had an era of splendor in the 1890s, at the peak of the rubber boom. However, the economic gains were largely the result of great human suffering: untold thousands of enslaved Amerindian seringueiros (rubber tappers) died through disease and overwork. Manaus, which already boasted as the capital administrative of the State, experienced a great population growth and the economic advancement, resulting mainly from exports of raw materials until then exclusively from Amazon Region. With the wealth generated by the production and export of
natural rubber (
Hevea brasiliensis), the amazonian capital received large works such as the port of Manaus, the
Amazonas Opera House, Palace of Justice,
Reservoir of Mocó, the first network of electric energy and public transport services as trams. Vista as a reference, your headquarters became a symbol of prosperity and civilization for the Amazonas State, being the center of important artistic and cultural events. Bloomed so trade in luxury products and superfluous, with men and women from all over the world parading its streets and avenues, at purchase of the so-called
"black gold", as was dubbed the natural rubber, to resell big profits in the main capitals of
Europe and in the
United States from 1910, difficult times began,
Free Economic Zone Free trade zone of Manaus (also called Manaus Industrial Pole or Industrial Pole of the Brazilian Amazon) was an economic development project implemented by Act number 3 173 of 3 June 1957, that reframed, enlarged and established tax incentives for deployment of an industrial, commercial and agricultural pole in a physical area of 10 000 km2, with headquarters in the city of Manaus. Despite the adoption in 1957, that project has only been in fact deployed, by Decree-Law number 288 of 28 February 1967. The project was implemented by the
Brazilian military government, at first, the benefits of this project was extended to the Western Amazon, formed by the States of Amazonas,
Acre,
Rondônia and
Roraima. On August 20, 2008, the free trade area of
Macapá, which was included in the Council of Manaus by Free Zone Superintendence (Suframa) and thus, the
Amapá received the same benefit given for other Amazonian Brazilian States. The creation of the Manaus free trade zone aimed at promoting the occupation of this region population and raise the level of security to maintain your integrity in addition, brake deforestation in the region and recoup the preservation and sustainability of biodiversity present in the state. In its years of existence, the story of the Manaus Free Trade Zone is divided into four phases: the first, from 1967 to 1975, characterized the reference in the country's industrial policy for the import substitution of final goods and formation of the internal market; the second, from 1975 to 1990, was characterized by the adoption of measures promoting the domestic industry inputs, especially in the
State of São Paulo (largest consumer at the time); the third, in 1991 and 1996, came into force on new Industrial policy and foreign trade, marked by the opening of the
Brazilian economy, reducing the import tax for the rest of the country and emphasis on quality and productivity, with the implementation of the Brazilian policy quality and productivity (PBPQ in Portuguese) and Industrial competitiveness program; and the fourth and last, of the 1996–2002, marks its adaptation to a globalized economy scenarios and the adjustments demanded by the effects of the
Real plan, as the movement of privatization and deregulation. ==Geography==