Salvador

Salvador (in full, São Salvador da Baía de Todos os Santos, meaning "Holy Savior of the Bay of All Saints") is a city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. The city was for a long time also known as Bahia, and appears under that name (or as Salvador da Bahia) on many maps and books from before the mid 20th century, including in Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719).

History

Although the Bay of Todos os Santos was first encountered by Europeans and christened in 1502, the city of Salvador wasn't founded until 1549 by a fleet of Portuguese settlers headed by Thomé de Souza, the first governador-geral (governor general) of the entire colony of Brazil. It quickly became Brazil's main sea port and the first colonial capital of Portuguese Brazil, a center of the sugar industry and the slave trade. The city became the seat of the first Catholic bishop of Brazil in 1552, and is still an ecclesiastical power center of Brazilian Catholicism. Its cathedral, still standing today, was completed in 1572. By 1583, there were 1,600 people residing in the city, and it quickly grew into one of the largest cities in the New World, surpassing any colonial American city at the time of the American Revolution in 1776.

Related Topics:
1502 - 1549 - Thomé de Souza - Sea port - Portuguese - Sugar - Slave trade - 1552 - 1572 - 1583 - American Revolution - 1776

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Salvador was the capital city of the Portuguese viceroyalty of Grão-Pará and its province of Bahia de Todos os Santos. The Dutch captured and sacked the city in May of 1624, and held it along with other NE ports until it was re-taken by the Portuguese in April of the following year.

Related Topics:
Viceroy - Grão-Pará - Bahia de Todos os Santos - Dutch - 1624

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Salvador was the first capital of Brazil and remained so until 1763, when it was succeeded by Rio de Janeiro, the new economic power center of that era. The city became a base for the Brazilian independence movement and was attacked by Portuguese troops in 1812, before being officially liberated on July 2, 1823. It settled into graceful decline over the next 150 years, out of the mainstream of Brazilian industrialisation. It is though, a national cultural and tourist centre.

Related Topics:
1763 - Rio de Janeiro - 1812 - July 2 - 1823

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By 1948 the city had some 340,000 people, and was already Brazil's fourth largest city. By 1991 the population was 2.08 million.

Related Topics:
1948 - 1991

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In the 1990s, a major city project cleaned up and restored the old downtown area, the Pelourinho.

Related Topics:
1990s - Pelourinho

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Salvador has been the birthplace of many noted Brazilians, including musicians such as song-writer Dorival Caymmi, MPB star Gal Costa, and Grammy-winner Gilberto Gil. Gil later went on to be a city council member (vereador) and is currently the Brazilian Minister of Culture.

Related Topics:
Dorival Caymmi - MPB - Gal Costa - Gilberto Gil

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