The first
Polish immigrants arrived in the port of
Itajaí,
Santa Catarina, in August 1869. They were 78 Poles from the area of Southern Silesia. Commandant Redlisch, of the ship Victoria, brought people from
Mitteleuropa to settle in
Brusque. , in the State of Santa Catarina, received many
Polish immigrants. ,
Rio Grande do Sul. ,
Rio Grande do Sul. . They were in total 16 families, among them: Francisco Pollak, Nicolau Wós, Boaventura Pollak, Thomasz Szymanski, Simon Purkot, Felipe Purkot, Miguel Prudlo, Chaim Briffel, Simon Otto, Domin Stempke, Gaspar Gbur, Balcer Gbur, Walentin Weber, Antoni Kania, Franciszek Kania, André Pampuch and Stefan Kachel. The Poles were placed in the colonies Príncipe Dom Pedro and Itajaí, in the area of Brusque. Fewer Poles immigrated to Brazil than
Portuguese or
Italians, but many Poles have settled in Brazil. From 1872 to 1917 (
Act of 5th November), 110,243 "Russian" citizens entered Brazil - in fact, the vast majority of them were Poles, since Polish lands situated east of
Prosna river was under Russian rule as
Congress Poland, thus ethnic Poles immigrated with Russian
passports. West of Poland was part of the German Empire, therefore these Poles migrated as German citizens. The State of
Paraná received the majority of Polish immigrants, who settled mainly in the region of
Curitiba, in the towns of Mallet, Cruz Machado, São Matheus do Sul, Irati, Rebouças, Rio Azul and União da Vitória. Most Polish immigrants to Southern Brazil were
Catholics who arrived between 1870–1920 and worked as small farmers in the State of
Paraná. Others went to the neighboring states of
Rio Grande do Sul and
Santa Catarina and São Paulo, which is a state as well as a city. After the 1920s, many Polish
Jews immigrated seeking refuge from Europe, settling mainly in the
State of São Paulo. Today most Brazilian Jews are of Polish descent. In 1871, with the help of Father Antônio Zieliński, well connected in the court of
Dom Pedro II, in
Rio de Janeiro, Wos-Saporski, later nicknamed the "Father of Polish Colonization in
Paraná", obtained permission from the emperor for this group (as German citizens), already expanded (32 families), could migrate to the Pilarzinho colony in the region of
Curitiba, thus founding the first Polish colony in Brazil with the support of the government of Paraná. Until June 1873, 809 Polish immigrants arrived in Paraná, of which 454 were provisionally lodged in Curitiba. In September 1873, another 64 families (258 people) disembarked in
Santa Catarina and again with the help of Wos-Saporski and the authorization of Frederico José Cardoso de Araújo Abranches, then president of the Province of Paraná, they settled 6 km from Curitiba in the current Abranches neighborhood. In 1875 about two thousand Poles lived on the outskirts of Curitiba. In 1877 the number had already jumped to six thousand immigrants. Thanks to the action of Adolfo Lamenha Lins, who presided over the province of Paraná between 1875 and 1877, there was a synchrony between the colonization of the territory, rural development and immigration. Lamenha understood the difference between spontaneous and official immigration, so, during his government, he encouraged the establishment of new immigrants in Paraná by funding their journey from the ports of
Paranaguá and
São Francisco do Sul to Curitiba and by creating several colonial agricultural centers. He also invested in infrastructure and access, enabling the movement of goods and ensuring the supply of foodstuffs to nearby markets. In the last report sent to the Legislative Assembly (1877), Lins states that six thousand immigrants lived on the outskirts of the capital. The most important colonies founded at this time were: Santa Cândida (1875), Orleans (1875), Thomas Coelho (
Araucária - 1876),
Santo Inácio (1876), Dona Augusta (1876), Lamenha (1876), D. Pedro II ( 1876), Riviere (1877). In 1878, the colonies Murici, Zacarias, Inspetor Carvalho and Coronel Accioly were created. Also in 1878, 28 Polish immigrant families settled in Colônia Moema, in the municipality of
Ponta Grossa. Soon after, more families arrived in the municipality, creating new colonies: Taquari, Guaraúna, Rio Verde and Itaiacoca. In 1907, a school was founded in Ponta Grossa that catered to the needs of Polish children, in a space attached to the Sant'Ana Chapel and directed by the Servas do Espírito Santo sisters. In 1908 the school had more than 50 Polish
students. The
school closed in 1933. In 1937 Paraná had 167 Polish ethnic schools. The first school run by a Polish immigrant in Paraná was opened in October 1876 by Jerônimo Durski in the Orleans colony, in Curitiba. In 1934, the Maritime and Colonial League (Liga Morska i Kolonialna, LMiK) founded the Morska Wola agricultural colony, in the municipality of Cândido de Abreu. In 1939 the colony had 195 families, approximately 700 people, most of them
Polish. 1886 is considered the starting point of Polish immigration in the state of
Rio Grande do Sul. A group of 300 immigrants, unable to adapt to the climate of the state of
Bahia, where they first headed, migrated to the north of
Porto Alegre and founded the Santa Teresa and Santa Bárbara colonies. In 1888, they were demarcated from the lots of the Mariana Pimentel Colony, which received the first waves of
Polish immigrants the following year. In 1890 a group of Polish immigrants arrived in Porto Alegre who headed for the town of São Feliciano, the current municipality of Dom Feliciano. Most were from
Kongresówka (the part of
Poland occupied by
Russia). The immigrants received lots and started making
houses, planting crops and raising animals. They were very religious, and the first things they built were
chapels. In this first phase, few Polish settlers settled in
Santa Catarina due to the climate and "hostile territory" (inhabited by Indigenous Brazilians). They did not live well with the German colonies, which were predominant in the region. Santa Catarina was at the time a province of passage, where immigrants disembarked at the port of
Itajaí but headed mainly for Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul. In 1873, around 60 Polish families (as German citizens) arrived in
Espírito Santo from
Prussia,
Pomerania and
Silesia (from the Wrocław region), and together with the Germans, they settled mainly in Santa Leopoldina and Santa Teresa. According to Brazilian sources, from 1876 onwards, the colonization of the 25 de Julho River valley, located in the lower part of the Santa Teresa mountain range, towards the Rio Doce, began, primarily by Italian, German and Swiss immigrants. The following year,
Poles occupied the lands along the 5 de Novembro River, starting the colony called Patrimonio dos Polacos or Santo Antônio dos Polacos. In the north of Espírito Santo, the city of Águia Branca, which received its name for being the symbol of
Poland, is founded by the association called Colonizing Society of
Warsaw. ==Religion==