Background Before the arrival of Europeans in America, the region known today as Santa Cruz was populated by people of the village's language family,
Tupi–Guarani, who called the place of Spawning (fish too). After the discovery of Brazil, with the arrival of Portuguese colonists to the
Guanabara Bay, a vast area of lowlands of Santa Cruz and the surrounding mountains, was donated to Cristóvão Monteiro, the Captaincy of São Vicente by
Martim Afonso de Sousa in January 1567, as a reward for services rendered during the military expedition that finally drove the French out of Guanabara. So he built shortly after a sugar mill and a chapel in a location known as
Curral Falso, beginning the settlement of land by the Portuguese.
Companhia de Jesus With the death of the owner of the land, his wife, Mrs. Marquesa Ferreira, donated to the priests of the
Companhia de Jesus a part of the lands of Cristóvão played it. These religious, by gathering these lands to other land grants, were an immense plantation marked by a large wooden cross: the Holy Cross. In a few decades, the region between
Barra de Guaratiba, the current city of
Mangaratiba, to
Vassouras, in the south of the current state of Rio de Janeiro, was part of the powerful Finance from Santa Cruz, the most developed of the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro this time with thousands of slaves, livestock, and various types of crops, managed with advanced techniques for the season. Another initiative of the leaders of Santa Cruz Farm, in terms of culture, was the foundation of a music school, an orchestra and choir, built by slaves, who played and sang at mass and in festivities, either on the farm or in the capital of the Captaincy. It is, therefore, that Santa Cruz was the birthplace of the organization's first instrumental and choral music conservatory in Brazil. Passes through the cow lands of Santa Cruz in the trail that linked the colonial city of Sao Sebastiao do Rio de Janeiro to the interior: the Way of the Jesuits, later called The Way of Mines, and later still, the Royal Road to Santa Cruz. His route lay to the port of Sepetiba, where he embarked to the city of Paraty, where the former was leaving the Royal Road. Before the expulsion of the Jesuits of the areas of Portugal and its colonies in 1759 by action of the
Marquês de Pombal, the assets of the Companhia de Jesus (Finance and Santa Cruz) reverted to the Crown.
The Royal Family With the banishment of the Jesuits in Brazil, the assets of Farm Santa Cruz went on to make the Viceroys. After a period of administrative difficulties, under the government of Viceroy
Luís de Vasconcelos e Sousa, the farm again experienced a period of prosperity. At the beginning of the 19th century with the arrival of the Royal Family in Brazil (1808) and its establishment in Rio de Janeiro, the farm was chosen as a vacation spot. Thus, the former convent has been adapted to the functions of space real - Royal Palace of Santa Cruz. Feeling comfortable in the Royal Treasury of Santa Cruz, the Prince Regent prolonged his stay for several months, shipping, promoting public hearings and approvals from the same. It grew up and were educated princes
Don Pedro and
Dom Miguel. On the initiative of the Portuguese sovereign were brought from China about a hundred men in charge of cultivating tea, the site now known as
Morro do Chá. For almost a century this activity has been productive and attracted the interest of technical and visitors, as the pioneer its implementation in Brazil. The tea harvested in Santa Cruz was excellent and, therefore, its production was fully sold. It should also be noted that throughout the period between 1808 and 1889, Santa Cruz was one of the city of Rio with its landscapes portrayed by foreign travelers as the French Jean-Baptiste Debret, the Austrian Thomas Ender, the English Mary Graham and others. The picture that serves as the illustration for this text is an example, being written by the Belgian painter Benjamin Mary, who was the first ambassador of
Belgium in Brazil, painted in November 1837. The figure is documentary evidence that the viewpoint of Santa Cruz was a visiting place for the emperors, in which you can see beyond the old Imperial Palace, Dom Pedro II with only 14 years old enjoying the view from the farm. In the year 1833 the parsonage National Treasury of Santa Cruz has been shut down by decree the end of the village of Itaguaí and became the end of the city of Rio de Janeiro, taking into account the wishes of local people. In Santa Cruz the law was signed by Princess Isabel who gave emancipation to all slaves of the Imperial Government. The enactment of the law was attended by distinguished guests such as the
Viscount of Rio Branco and the Conde d'Eu. Santa Cruz, a political-economic position, and especially strategic (facing the sea and back into the paths of the backlands of Minas) was one of the first places in the country to benefit from the system of home delivery of letters by mail. On November 22 of 1842 opened the first branch of the Post Office in Brazil to adopt this service. It was also the site chosen by the emperor to install the first telephone line from South America, between the Palace of
São Cristóvão and Santa Cruz. In 1878 was inaugurated the train station and at the end of 1881, D. Pedro II inaugurated the Slaughterhouse Santa Cruz, known as the most modern in the world at the time, which was served by an extension of the railroad and supplied meat the whole city of Rio de Janeiro. Also, due to the generator which served the slaughter, Santa Cruz was the first district of the suburb to have electric lighting. D. Pedro II also launched the first phone of Finance. Gradually, Santa Cruz was transformed, with palaces, solar, shops, streets and parks. Weathering the weather and the criminal actions of men, many of these places are still standing, attesting to the importance of this historic neighborhood. The Palace Princess Isabel, the
Marco Onze, the
Wallace Fountain, The Zeppelin Hangar and many others, are examples.
Republic s. After the Proclamation of the Republic, Santa Cruz lost much of its prestige. But solved some problems, soon attracted foreign immigrants, who contributed greatly to the economy of the neighborhood. The Arabs and the Italians were responsible for the expansion of local commerce, and the development of Japanese agriculture. During the government
Getúlio Vargas in the 1930s, the region of Santa Cruz has undergone profound changes, with sanitation projects that aimed for recovery of land, with the recovery of health and economic dynamism, from the creation of agricultural colonies. In 1938 came the first Japanese families, not directly from Japan, but of
Mogi das Cruzes,
São Paulo, to fill the newly created lots Colonial Center and implement new experiences in agriculture. The lots were distributed through the streets of
Reta do Rio Grande and
Reta de Sao Fernando, and they, when they came, immediately put his hands on the land, having already produced that year after only three months of work, significant amount of food. The production was so great that supplied the whole city of Rio de Janeiro, giving Santa Cruz the title "breadbasket" of the Federal District. At the time was still built in the region, a hangar for dirigible Zeppelin, the Zeppelin Hangar. The building is listed by the Institute for National Artistic and Historical Heritage (IPHAN) since 1998, receiving the subscription tipping No. 550. With the intensive development of Rio de Janeiro, occurring in all directions, was inaugurated in 1975, the Industrial Zone, strongly promoting the urbanization of the neighborhood. In it are located the three major industrial districts: Santa Cruz,
Paciência and Palmares, where they are in full operation at the
Casa da Moeda do Brasil, Cosigua (
Gerdau Group), Valesul, White Martins, Glasurit and to
Usina Santa Cruz, one of the largest thermoelectric fuel oil from Latin America, with an installed capacity of 950 MW. In the early 1980s, many housing projects were built by the State Housing Company (CEHAB) which increased the population of the neighborhood, giving it the characteristics of the neighborhood dorm.
Current Santa Cruz is now a rapidly growing district. Has a well-developed trade, several banks and numerous and diverse shops. It has an educational system that satisfactorily meet the demand and the Municipal Hospital Dom Pedro II recently modernized by the city and specializes in treating burns. In addition to two large military units of the Armed Forces: the School of Engineering Battalion and Air Base Santa Cruz, an important center for the defense of Aeronautics and largest complex of fighting Brazilian Air Force, the Cidade das Crianças Brizola, which serves as theme park of the City of Rio de Janeiro (including having a planetary), aimed particularly at children and adolescents, and important historical and cultural monuments. Were installed, particularly near the avenida João XXIII, several industrial enterprises weight, especially the
Companhia Siderúrgica do Atlântico (CSA), which changed the landscape and dynamism to the economy of the district. It is scheduled for put into operation a factory turbo-power generators for offshore platforms by the end of 2012, an investment of US$60 million of British
Rolls-Royce Energy. Until 2016 will be installed in an area of 570,000 m2 in the industrial district the new processing center vaccines and biopharmaceuticals of
Fiocruz, which will invest
R$ 800 million, which will be manufactured 600 million doses of vaccine per year. It is scheduled to visit
Pope Benedict XVI during the
World Youth Day 2013. It is also characterized as a working-class neighborhood, in which there are many problems such as transportation difficulties, lack of sanitation appropriate at certain points, action of militias in poor communities and environmental problems serious. With increasing population, the violence in the neighborhood has worried the authorities. The police action is to combat the trafficking of narcotics in the slums surrounding the neighborhood, as well as militiamen in action. These are responsible for the control of alternative transportation, and illegal operation of electricity, gas and cable television . ==Geography==