The Historic Port

The French corsairs raids at Rio de Janeiro, recently founded by the Portugese, were a lesson of how important was defending the costal area of Guanabara Bay. This influenced expansion of settlements in the area of Port Region. Time passed and in the mid-eighteenth century, the site, before inhospitable and unappreciated, concentrated various vessels that circulated between the mainland and the sea, turning it into a logistical hell. This coast was not a continuous line of earth, a result of the land fill done in the past century, it consisted of islands and "sacos" (small coves) in the localities of Gamboa, Saúde, Santo Cristo and Caju, especially among Morro da Conceição and Saúde.

If the Valongo Wharf stones, unearthed in 2011 after more than a century hidden under concrete, could speak - they would say, that between sixteenth and nineteenth century over 1 million of African slaves passed over them. Only between 1811 and 1831 it was 500,000 people, according to historians. The Valongo was not just a landing beach but a shopping complex in the slave market, with warehouses, stalls, shops selling various artifacts. And there was the Lazaretto, a place where slaves were quarantined, whose walls were discovered in recent excavations. The site was "hidden" in 1843 during the construction of Cais da Imperatriz, who received the Princess Teresa Cristina Maria, of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. (photo: Marcos Tristão /Museu do Amanhã).

Away from the visions of the wealthier classes a clearing the size of a professional football field received between 1774 and 1830 the eviction of slaves who did not resist to routine beatings. Many arrived at Cologne very sick, almost dead. For a long time, the location of the Black New Cemetery was unknown. Until, in 1996, during works in the house number 36 of the Pedro Ernesto Street, they were found bones that youth would likely originate from Angola, Mozambique and Kenya. Was unveiled, by chance, the exact location of the cemetery, which received 50,000 corpses in only 56 years (photo: Marcos Tristão / Museu do Amanhã).

In the mid 1850s, coffee - considered "black gold" - becomes the main economic propeller in Brazil, being exported to other countries in Rio. The manufacture and ship repair, in addition to the railways, were substantial in the industrialization process in Port Region. Irineu Evangelista de Souza, Baron of Mauá, becomes a major investor in that area, which is modernized between the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. From 1903, the president of the Republic - Rodrigues Alves and the then mayor of Rio - Francisco Pereira Passos, perform a thorough urban change between Praça Quinze and Caju district (photo: Marcos Tristão / Museu do Amanhã).

A nervous vein of concrete in the middle of the central region of Rio de Janeiro. So it was known Elevado da Perimetral, connection route between the South Zone and the city's main entrance doors. Its planification started in the 1940s, when Rio was still the capital of Brazil and already gave evidence that, years later, would feel the consequences of the increase in the automotive fleet. Built with character to serve as an adjunct to Rio Branco Avenue, the route was an old aspiration engineers seeking road solutions. The project got off the ground in 1957 and the first part of the viaduct, connecting the avenues General Justo and Presidente Vargas, was inaugurated in 1960. The rest of the Perimetral, the Mauá Square to the Rio-Niteroi Bridge, was built over 18 years and delivered in 1978 (photo: Tanya Rego / Agency Brazil).(photo: Tânia Rêgo/Agência Brasil).