and
Atlantic Ocean.
Caramuru assisted
Francisco Pereira Coutinho, the first
captain of Bahia, in establishing the settlement of Pereira in the present neighborhood of Ladeira da Barra in 1534. This had to be abandoned after mistreatment by its settlers caused the local
Tupi Indians to turn hostile. After the establishment of
Salvador in 1549, the area of the former settlement at Pereira became known as Vila Velha ('Old Town'). Today is the slopes of Barra and constructing the "one hundred homes to residents" who, twelve years later still would be found by Thomas Cole at the time of the founding of the city, called Old Town, said in the letters of the
Jesuits and the documents of the first governor, general. Where today is the church of Santo Antonio da Barra was built a
fort, a castle made of pug and wood. It also occurs in the first experiment of mixing culture with the
native indigenous white
European in the history of Brazil, taking in figures from Diogo Alvares Correia, the Caramuru and his wife, the Indian Catarina Paraguaçu the key historical elements, and this time named after the poet Gregório de Mattos of "the Adam of Kilwinning," father of
civilization Bahia. The Santo Antônio da Barra Fort, one of the most important historic constructions in Brazil, houses the Nautical Museum of Bahia, comprising nautical instruments, shipwreck finds, miniatures of important vessels, military artifacts, and utensils. The fort itself and its lighthouse, Farol da Barra, which is also how the whole complex is often referred to, are the museum's top attractions. The fort is Brazil's oldest military construction. In 1534, long before the foundation of Salvador in 1549, defensive structures made of loose rock and adobe were first put in place on the tip of the Santo Antônio
peninsula. The gneiss formation was known as Ponta do Padrão, for a marker (padrão) installed there in 1501 by order of the Portuguese king to signal occupation of the colony. Local Governor Francisco de Souza ordered the construction of a structure made of stone and lime mortar in 1598. The fort was rebuilt, renovated and redesigned several times over the years, always under the aegis of Saint Anthony, patron of Salvador, whose image at the fort was awarded military ranks, up to lieutenant-colonel, from the early 18th century to 1912. One of the highlights in the fortification's history was its occupation by Dutch forces in 1624 and reconquest by the Portuguese colonizers that same year. It was the current
Porto da Barra Beach, which the governor-general Tomé de Sousa landed with men and material, founding the city of San Salvador da Bahia of All Saints in the year of 1549, the sixteenth century. At the time, the town had grown to more than a thousand
inhabitants between Indians and Europeans, after the creation of the
capital, the Old Town was slowly emptied until it disappears completely, in the seventeenth century. Until the nineteenth century, remains as a suburb of the city, made after a spa in March ítimo in the first half of the twentieth century, and after the transformation of the Path of the Council on Seven Avenue, begins the process of consolidation as neighborhood important. In 1942, the building is constructed Oceânica (Oceanic), its most famous landmark of
modern architecture. The neighborhood received during the 20th century, a large number of immigrants from
Portugal,
Spain,
Italy,
Germany,
Poland and
Russia. Opened on December 13, 1998, the Nautical Museum of Bahia replaced the Museum of Hydrographics and Navigation, which was housed at the fort from 1974 to July 1998. Bordered by two beaches, Farol da Barra and Porto da Barra, the fort area is visited by people to watch the sunset as well as a meeting point when it hosts events such as
New Year's Eve and
Carnival. Farol da Barra is part of Barra/Ondina, one of Salvador's Carnival circuits. Porto da Barra has been busy for centuries. It was here that Salvador founder Tomé de Souza (1515-1579), Brazil's first governor-general, arrived in 1549 with several ships and over 1,000 people, like sailors, soldiers, Jesuit priests led by
Manuel da Nóbrega, laborers, and degredados, or people forced to exile. Souza had been entrusted with a mission by Portuguese king John III, "build on the lands of Brazil a great and strong fortress and settlement, on Baía de Todos-os-Santos". Moreover, the veteran military man was expected to impose order on a territory with a failing administrative system based on hereditary captaincies and make it profitable for the colonizers, pronto. Months before his arrival, the king had enlisted the help of Portuguese
Diogo Álvares Correia, known as Caramuru, who was married to an indigenous woman, Catarina Paraguaçu, and mediated relations between natives and the Portuguese. March 29, 1549, the date of Souza's (peaceful) arrival is officially considered Salvador's foundation day, though it would be a month before construction work started in what would become known as Cidade Alta, or High Salvador. At the northern end of the beach, a marker commemorating the city's foundation has a marble Maltese cross by Portuguese sculptor João Fragoso and a blue and white tile mural depicting
Thomé de Souza's arrival. The tile mural by Portuguese artist Eduardo Gomes is a new reading of the 1949 original by the also Portuguese artist Joaquim Rebucho, installed when the monument was inaugurated in 1952. In March 2013, the monument was reinaugurated, after restorations. ==The neighborhood==