São Paulo celebrates its anniversary this year with parts of its history impressed on all races. The small village made a giant out of Brazil, with its economic power, its multicultural quality and its resistance to adversities. It became the biggest city in Latin America, resulting from very enlightened people, some distinguished, others rarely remembered, roaming about its history.
There is a character that figures amidst São Paulo’s memory and almost always takes on the role of a simple accessory character. The Portuguese João Ramalho, who had been living in these lands for some time, even before the arrival of Martim Alfonso de Sousa in São Vicente (1532), can be considered, in fact, the real father of the so called Planalto Paulista (São Paulo’s Plateau).
He was the one who made way for the Jesuit priests and taught them how to reach a region of “cool and temperate air like that found in Spain”. It was João Ramalho who beat the Indian resistance and became Lord of the Piratininga fields, where, on the 25th of January, 1554, the priests Manoel da Nóbrega and José de Anchieta founded São Paulo’s Royal School (Real Collegio).
Therefore, it was through João Ramalho’s and Priest Manoel da Nóbrega’s hands, that São Paulo was born, in a small hut covered with thatch (sapé), which measured 14 steps long and ten wide, on the top of a hill. It served as a school, dormitory, refectory, sickbay, kitchen and storeroom, as reported in a manuscript by Priest Anchieta himself.
Director of “The Company of Jesus” in Brazil, Nóbrega was the one who determined where the school would be built and, being a devotee of the Apostle Paul, he also chose the day of this saint to found São Paulo de Piratininga officially. The date was marked by a mass, in front of the hut, celebrated by priest Manuel de Paiva.
But, besides João Ramalho and Nóbrega, another religious man played an important role in São Paulo’s history. José de Anchieta was a remarkable character in the consolidation of the new town. He helped in the creation of the Jesuits’ school and worked there for 10 years as a teacher. Together with him, other priests taught Portuguese, Latin, Mathematics, Theology and History. Soon, the first hut became too small for its function. Thus, the Jesuits united efforts to build a new school, inaugurated between 1556 and 1557.
This school had mud walls (taipa de pilão, i.e. a mixture of mud, sand, threads, ox blood and manure).
It is a fact that the relationship between João Ramalho and the Jesuits was not always good. The priests strongly condemned his life style, the large number of children and relationships he had with Indian women besides Bartira, his wife, daughter of the tribal chief Tibiriçá.
When the first Jesuits arrived in Brazil, in 1549, together with Tomé de Sousa and led by the priest Manoel da Nóbrega, João Ramalho was severely criticized. But the religious men soon perceived that without his aid it would be difficult to initiate the work of catechizing.
In around 1553, Tomé de Souza, when writing to the king, said that João Ramalho had "so many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren that I do not even dare tell Your Highness, he is over 70 years old, walks nine leagues before dinner and does not have even one grey hair either on his head nor on his face".
São Paulo grew around the Pátio do Colegio (the School Yard). In 1560 it gained Village status and a pillory, but due to the distance to the coast and the commercial isolation, it remained in position of no greater importance for a long time. In 1681, it was considered the head of São Paulo’s “Captaincy” (each of the administrative units during the colonial time, which later became the states of the union) and, in 1711 the Village gained the status of City. It was in São Paulo that the “bandeiras” (“flags”), organized expeditions to look for precious minerals in the distant hinterlands.
The changes reach the starting point of the city.
With the expulsion of the Jesuits from Latin America, in 1760, all their possessions were confiscated and the school, the cradle of São Paulo, then started to belong to the government. The place then started being called Largo do Palácio (Palace Square), housing the headquarters of the general captains.
From then on, the area underwent various changes: in 1770, it was the stage of the inaugural session of the Academia Paulista de Letras (São Paulo Academy of Letters), becoming a civic and cultural center. In 1821, it received São Paulo’s Temporary Government, a first step for National Independence. In the following year, the Páteo do Colégio (according to its spelling in plates and documents) received an important guest: after declaring the Independence of Brazil, Dom Pedro I went on to there, where he stayed for 11 days and it wrote the Independence Hymn.
Already in 1881, the State President Florêncio de Abreu determined large renovation works to the building’s façade, which later, with the arrival of the Republic, had its church transformed into the Congress Palace.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the building, totally deprived of its previous characteristics, started to house the Education Secretariat and was demolished in 1953. Fortunately, one mud wall (taipa de pilão) was preserved. In the attempt to rescue the memory of the place, another building was erected at the Páteo do Colégio (according to its spelling in plates and documents), today an area that unites a chapel and the Anchieta Museum (sacral art pieces, historical relics, pictures, photographs and objects rescued during the works carried out between 1953 and 1956).
The owners of Piratininga
At the time of the foundation of São Paulo, the Brazilian Indians “Tupiniquins” dominated the fields of Piratininga and the Tietê River Valley. The plateau was inhabited by some Tupi tribes. The Indians went down to the coast when it was cold to fish and they were responsible for the creation of several tracks, most of them used by the Jesuits and the Portuguese.
The Tupis were formed by several Indian tribes; most of them lived only for war. They were very proud of their strength and courage.
Among the Tupi families, the Tamoios prevailed on the Island of São Vicente, when the Portuguese expedition arrived in 1532.
It is important to point out that the Tribal Chief Tibiriçá, the head of part of the Indian nation established on the Piratininga fields, with its headquarters in the village of Inhampuambuçu, was a great collaborator of the Jesuits and the Portuguese. He defended São Paulo many times from the attacks of other tribes and facilitated the work of catechizing. His remains are today deposited in a crypt in the Sé Cathedral.
The Indians used to live in groups. They were nomads, and that is why it is so difficult to determine where exactly they used to live for any length of time. They never used to enslave the enemy either, but to devour him. In the "headhunting” that they used to encourage, according to Hans Staden’s reports, the elder women were responsible for skinning, cutting and splitting the victim. Manoel da Nóbrega wrote that they used to fatten the defeated enemy in order to devour him later. The cycle of wars between the Portuguese and the Tamoios did not last long.
On the 12th of May, 1564, São Paulo’s Chamber registered: "the Captaincy of São Vicente is between two generations of people of several qualities and strengths found throughout Brazil’s coast, such as the Tamoios and Topinaquis, enemies for many years”.
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