Strategically
placed on the Amazon river estuary close to the
mouth of the mighty Rio Tocantins,
BELÉM
was founded by the Portuguese in 1616 as the
City of Our Lady of Bethlehem (Belém). Its
original role was to protect the river mouth and
establish the Portuguese claim to the region,
but it rapidly became established as an Indian
slaving port and a source of cacao and spices
from the Amazon. Such was the devastation of the
local population, however, that by the mid-eighteenth
century a royal decree was issued in Portugal to
encourage its growth: every white man who
married an Indian woman would receive "one axe,
two scissors, some cloth, clothes, two cows and
two bushels of seed".
Despite the decree, a shrinking labour force
and, in the 1780s, the threat of attack by a
large contingent of Munduruku Indians meant that
Belém was deep in decline before the end of the
century. In the nineteenth century, it sank
still further, as the centre of the nation's
bloodiest rebellion, before the town experienced
an extraordinary revival as the most prosperous
beneficiary of the Amazon rubber boom. By the
end of the nineteenth century, Belém was a very
rich town, accounting for close to half of all
Brazil's rubber exports. At this time rubber was
being collected from every corner of the Amazon.
As a result of the boom, thousands of poor
people moved into Belém from the Northeast,
bringing with them new cultural inputs such as
music and dance, and, of course, the
candomblé and macumba Afro-Brazilian
religions. After the crash of 1914, the city
suffered another disastrous decline - but it
kept afloat, just about, on the back of Brazil
nuts and the lumber industry.
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The wealth
generated by the
rubber boom is
still evident in
the shape of the
modern city,
whose elegant
central avenues
lead from the
luxuriant Praça
da República
down to the port,
past a
historical
sector which is
replete with
Portuguese
colonial
architecture.
It's a friendly
city with a
Parisian feel
and a
surprisingly
modern skyline.
Always warm and
often hot (and
often wet, too),
the climate
is generally
very pleasant,
with an average
temperature of
25°C. Belém
remains the
economic centre
of the North,
and the chief
port for the
Amazon.
The City
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The Praça da
República ,
an attractive
central park
with plenty of
trees affording
valuable shade,
is a perfect
place from which
to get your
bearings and
start a walking
tour of Belém's
downtown and
riverfront
attractions. The
praça
itself is
sumptuously
endowed with
fine statues and
columns focusing
on its fountain
centrepiece.
Overlooking it
is the most
obvious sign of
Belém's rubber
fortunes: the
nineteenth-century
Rococo Teatro
da Paz ,
dripping with
Neoclassical
fixtures, the
opera house
where Anna
Pavlova once
danced. Beside
it, modern
reality is
reflected in the
young men
cleaning other
people's big
cars on the
pavement, using
the roots of the
old trees as
cupboards for
their buckets
and sponges.
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