The history of Nova Milano began in 1870, when the land demarcation commission sent by the imperial government to draw the limits of the new Caxias Colony camped there, part of an ambitious project of the imperial government to populate the mountainous region of the state with free workers, who would be settled in single-family lots, where they were to live as farmers and artisans. The government intended to improve the domestic supply of basic products and colonize the population with European immigrants. The applicants received government assistance for settlement. Two other colonies were demarcated at the time:
Conde d'Eu and Dona Isabel, but the administration of the project was tumultuous and not very efficient, and the first immigrants faced a series of difficulties when arriving in Rio Grande do Sul. The lands closest to the rivers and valleys were already occupied by
Germans, and the colonies destined for the Italians were located on the mountain slopes, rugged and previously unexplored regions. Most Italians who arrived in Brazil at the end of the 19th century were sent to
São Paulo, working on the
coffee plantations, where they were poorly paid employees and lived in
terrible conditions. In the south, the scheme was different: they would be owners of small single-family lots organized in rural colonies. The immigrants would travel by sea to the
port of Rio Grande, from there by boat up the
Patos Lagoon to Porto Alegre, where they were received in a pavilion and waited to be directed to their final destination. From Porto Alegre, they continued by boat or caravan to
Montenegro or
São Sebastião do Caí, from where the roads branched off to, respectively, the Conde d'Eu/Dona Isabel and Caxias Colonies. Although the road to the Conde d'Eu Colony already existed in 1871, this colony only received
Prussian,
Portuguese,
Spanish,
German, and
Swiss-
French immigrants until the end of 1875; and it was from the beginning of 1875 that the flow of Italian immigrants would start. They concentrated on the road leading to the Caxias Colony, because it was connected to the important troopers' road that led to the cowsheds of the Campos de Cima da Serra and to
Rio and
São Paulo; and because it was from Caxias the majority of immigrants that were redirected to the colonies in the highland region. Nova Milano was the first headquarters of the Caxias Colony, installed in its 1st Légua, in the extreme southwest of its territory, and there it was intended to build an urban center, which would concentrate the government, trade and services offered to the occupants of the rural lots of the entire colony. Soon after, the site was considered inadequate, and the headquarters was transferred to a more central and less topographically rugged location about 20 km to the northeast, in Travessão Santa Teresa of the 5th Légua, where there was a stripped plain called Campo dos Bugres, situated in the current historic center of Caxias do Sul. According to Thales de Azevedo, on January 3, 1875, the immigrant Angelo Feraboni arrived at the site, followed by Giacomo Varaschini, Luigi Barbante and Angelo Magioni, but who took credit as pioneers were Luigi Sperafico, Tomaso Radaelli and Stefano Crippa, all from the
Milan region, who would have arrived there on May 20. By September there were already 110 Italians in Nova Milano, largely from Milan, The place ended up enshrined in the popular imagination as the "cradle" of Italian colonization in the state for having welcomed the first newcomers, and although disputed by some historians, the date of May 20, 1875 became official as the beginning of the colonization of the lands of Rio Grande do Sul. To receive the new arrivals and temporarily lodge them until they chose their plots and settled, a shed was built in 1875, enlarged or rebuilt in 1876, which ended up baptizing the place in its early days: Barracão (big shed), where government agents maintained some legal, administrative, and technical structure, made land distribution feasible, directed the immigrants and their families to the properties, and helped them with seeds and tools. Later the place was renamed Nova Milano, in honor of the origin of the first families registered there. The name already appears on the 1885 colony plan naming the Travessão Milanese. In the great celebrations of the 100 years of Italian immigration to Rio Grande do Sul in 1975, which were accompanied by an explosion in academic bibliography on the subject, Nova Milano consolidated its image as the "cradle of Italian colonization". The climax of the festivities took place on May 20, in the Immigration Square - reaffirming the date as the official beginning of the settlement process organized by the government - including a parade of floats, artistic and folkloric attractions, speeches, hoisting of flags and staging of the arrival of immigrants, attended by the president of the Republic General
Ernesto Geisel, the
Minister of Labor, the
governor of the State, the
Italian Ambassador in Brazil and the Italian undersecretary of foreign affairs, among other authorities. On December 13, again amidst great solemnities, a Park-Monument in honor of the pioneers was inaugurated, located by the roadside in the area of the old shed. Carlos Tenius, creator of the monument, said of it: == Population ==