Ilha Grande is located on the southern coast of Rio de Janeiro, in the same region known as Costa Verde and in the municipality of Angra dos Reis, named after the day of São Paulo in 1502 (day of the Magi), by the Portuguese navigator Gonçalo Bunny. The word “Creek” can also mean “Goddess of Fire” in mythology, an image that evokes beauty and is also power and devastation.
It is a larger island of Brazil with 193 km ² of rugged and mountainous relief, whose highest point with 1031 m. It is the peak of Pedra D’água, where all the freshwater of the Island comes from and for this reason it has not been necessary for this point, so that it can preserve the water that supplies the residents and tourists who visit Ilha Grande. The second highest point is the Pico do Papagaio with 982 m. Famous for its picturesque form attracts tourists from all over the world for an evening walk, synchronized with the sunrise on the summit of Pico.
This beautiful island is cut across several coves, with a total of 106 beaches, lush vegetation formed by Mata Atlântica, Mangue and Restinga is nowadays known as a tropical paradise, but it was not always so.
8 years ago, Ilha Grande has been so inhabited by the Sambaquis (ancient civilization), whose name comes to Tupi Guarani, Tamba – Concha and Ki – Amontoado. Bulk brands can be used for different types of dishes also can be observed throughout the Island. But when it comes to an ancient civilization, you also have to be exiled fishermen, scouts and deep-sea divers, it is unknown who came from, perhaps some very old sea culture. They inhabited the coast of Rio de Janeiro for approximately 5,000 years and at some point began to have contact with the Tupi peoples. It is believed that what emerged was an acculturation, that is, the Sambaquis costumes were to clutch with the Tupi to the point where, upon the arrival of the Portuguese, they were no longer fit to tell a story of this ancient civilization called Sambaqui.
When the navigator Gonçalo Coelho arrived on the island as early as 1502, he met the people called Tamoios Island, which he called Ilha de Ippaun Wasu (Ilha Grande in Tupi-Guarani).
Throughout the sixteenth century, the fighting in the region, where the Portuguese were allied to the Tupiniquins and the French to the Tamoios. In 1559 the Portuguese crown solved Dom Fonseca to administer an Island, in 1567.
Already in 1726, from an attack of piracy and smuggling to the royal captaincy of Rio de Janeiro. During this period, the Great Island began to develop as a culture of sugar cane and coffee, which extended until the last decade of the nineteenth century and with an intensification of colonization, the Negroes were brought to work in the fields making the place a of the main routes of the slave trade.
In 1803, the island became a parish, with the name Santana da Ilha Grande from outside, having seen the legal relationship with Angra dos Reis. In 1863, Emperor Dom Pedro II made his first visit to Ilha Grande where a space farm was located, where the “Lazareto” would be built, an institution that could serve as a sorting and quarantine center for transporting patients who they arrived in Brazil. and more humble for people with leprosy. From 1886 to 1903 he attended more than 4,000 vessels, served as historical representative during the first years of the republic, when a two-river agricultural correctional colony was created. In the year 1930 all the inmates of the Lazareto were transferred to a colony of Two Rivers, having passed the Criminal Institute Cândido Mendes with capacity for up to 10000 inmates.
In this prison the book Portuguese Literature wrote the book “Memories of a Jail”, when it was imprisoned during a military dictatorship of the new state (1937-1945)
Until the 70’s the institute won the common leaders and prisoners, having originated in a criminal phase of nowadays like a red, fact that inspired a national film called 400 against 1.
In 1994 the prison was demolished and in 1998 a UERJ environmental studies center was installed on the site.
The time of Devil’s Cauldron island is an island in today’s tourism history.
This is a story of our own quest for Ilha Grande, we hope and synthesize the opportunity to enjoy, comment and share.
Big hug to all!
Acqua Roots Ilha Grande Tours
