Today I want to discuss the history of one of the most famous cities in South America: Rio de Janeiro.
Rio is a city that had become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. It is known for its colourful carnival celebrations, the Christ the Redeemer statue and white beaches, and of course its association with football and samba music.
Its history is also fascinating!
Today I want to discuss how the city got its names, became the centre of battles between European powers, grew into one of the largest slave ports in the world, and at one time was the only city in the Americaโs to be the capital of a European Empire. Weโll explore how the city built its fortunes based on gold and coffee, and the how the city has developed in the modern period.
And weโll also practice your English listening comprehension and learn some new vocabulary at the same time!
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Vocabulary
- harbour (n): a sheltered area of water where ships can safely stop or dock
- Rio grew into an important trading city because of its excellent natural harbour.
- rival (n): a person, group, or country competing with another
- France was one of Portugal’s biggest European rivals.
- establish (v): to create or set up something so it continues to exist
- The French tried to establish a permanent colony in Guanabara Bay.
- gateway (n): a place that provides access to somewhere else; an important entry point
- Rio became the main gateway for Brazil’s gold exports.
- transatlantic (adj): crossing or relating to the Atlantic Ocean
- The transatlantic slave trade brought millions of Africans to Brazil.
- abolish (v): to officially end a law, system, or practice
- Brazil was one of the last countries in the Americas to abolish slavery.
- favela (n): an informal settlement, often built on hillsides in Brazil
- Many poor families moved into favelas after being forced out of the city centre.
Guanabara Bay
Guanabara Bay, where Rio de Janeiro is located, is one of the largest natural harbours in the world. The region is surrounded by mountains, forests, rivers, and lots of land. Basically, it has almost everything people need to survive. And for this reason, people have been settling in the Guanabara Bay area for thousands of years.
The waters were full of fish and shellfish, the forests had animals and plants to eat, and the climate made it possible to grow crops throughout much of the year. It was a perfect place to [00:04:00] live.
When Europeans arrived in the early 16th century, the area was already inhabited by indigenous peoples. Most of these indigenous peoples spoke languages belonging to the Tupi language family. These people traveled by canoe across the bay, fished in the waters, grew crops such as cassava, and hunted in the surrounding forests.
Indigenous influence is still visible in Rio today. For example, many Brazilian place names come from indigenous languages. Also, people from Rio are today known as “Cariocas”. Its exact origin is debated, but most historians agree that this word comes from an indigenous Tupi phrase. Over time, it became the name for the people of Rio de Janeiro.
Naming Rio de Janeiro
On the 1st of January 1502, a Portuguese expedition sailed [00:05:00] into Guanabara Bay. They gave the area the name Rio de Janeiro, which literally means “January River.”
Interestingly, there wasn’t actually a river there. The explorers had entered Guanabara Bay, the large natural harbour but not a river.
Some of you may have heard the story that the explorers mistook the bay for the mouth of a river, but historians aren’t completely convinced by this. Portuguese sailors were really experienced navigators. It’s unlikely they would make such a basic mistake as to confuse a bay with a river. Another possibility is that the word “rio”, which now means river, was sometimes used more broadly at the time to describe different types of water.
French Rivalry
Although Portugal had officially claimed Brazil in the year 1500, it didn’t immediately establish large colonies or [00:06:00] cities. That created an opportunity for France, who were one of Portugal’s biggest European rivals.
French sailors started to cross the Atlantic to trade with indigenous communities, particularly for a valuable resource called brazilwood. This tree produced a red dye that was used in Europe for creating luxury textiles. It was so important that it eventually gave its name to the entire country of Brazil. The country that produced brazilwood became Brazil.
In 1555, a group of French settlers established a colony known as France Antarctique on an island in Guanabara Bay. They hoped to create a permanent French presence in South America.
Portugal, of course, saw this as a serious threat. In 1565, a military commander known as Estรกcio de Sรก founded a new [00:07:00] settlement for Portugal on the edge of the bay. He named it Sรฃo Sebastiรฃo do Rio de Janeiro after Portugal’s young king, Sebastian.
Fighting continued for two years between Portuguese forces and the French. Finally, in 1567, the Portuguese defeated the French and secured control of Guanabara Bay.
If France had succeeded, if France had defeated Portugal, Brazil today might be speaking French instead of Portuguese, or perhaps the country would never have become a single nation at all. But Portugal won, they succeeded, and they are the ones who had control of Brazil.
For much of its early history, Rio de Janeiro was a relatively modest colonial town. It was important, but it wasn’t the center of Portuguese Brazil. The center of Portuguese Brazil was Salvador, a city in northeastern Brazil. [00:08:00] Salvador was an extremely important part of Brazil’s sugar industry.
Rio slowly developed as a port. The city grew steadily, but there was little reason to think it would become more important than Salvador. Brazil’s sugar industry was the most important part of Brazil’s economy, and Salvador was much closer to the sugar industry than Rio.
Gold Rush and Capital Shift
But in the 1690s, Portuguese explorers discovered gold. They discovered gold in a state, a region of Brazil, a few hundred kilometers inland from Rio. Thousands of gold prospectors rushed into the interior of Brazil. These were people searching, mining for gold, and hoping to become rich. Historians often compare it to the California Gold Rush of the 19th century.
Vast quantities of gold began to be exported out of [00:09:00] Brazil. Although the gold was located and mined inland, it needed to reach the Atlantic Ocean before it could be shipped to Portugal and then across the world. And Rio became the main gateway for Brazil’s gold exports.
The gold industry brought wealth into the city. More buildings and churches and facilities were built to deal with the growing population. As the city became wealthier and more important to the gold industry, more people arrived there, also hoping to become wealthy.
In 1763, the Portuguese government moved the capital of colonial Brazil from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. Rio was just so much closer to the gold mines. Its location also made it easier to defend the south of Brazil against European powers like Spain. And Rio’s harbour made it one of the best ports in the entire Atlantic.
Slave Trade Legacy
Rio [00:10:00] also became dependent on the transatlantic slave trade. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, around five million enslaved Africans were brought to Brazil. Historians estimate that roughly 40% of all Africans transported across the Atlantic arrived in Brazil. Brazil was the number one recipient of African slaves from the transatlantic slave trade.
Many of these slaves passed through Rio de Janeiro. Rio became one of the busiest slave ports in the world. Ships carrying enslaved people crossed the Atlantic under horrific conditions before arriving at the city. The people who survived the journey were sold at markets and forced to work on plantations or in mines.
Enslaved Africans were a major part of the reason that Rio could grow in the way it did. The slaves built [00:11:00] roads, unloaded ships in the harbour carried goods through the street, and worked as skilled craftsmen. Slaves also produced the sugar, mined the gold, and later grew the coffee that were the main parts of Brazil’s economy.
Many of the traditions that people now associate with Rio and Brazil have their roots in African cultures. Samba is perhaps Brazil’s most famous musical style, and that developed from African rhythms and religious celebrations. Food and religion in Brazil have been influenced by African cultures. And Brazilian Portuguese also contains words and expressions with African origins.
Brazil was one of the last countries in the Western Hemisphere to abolish slavery. Britain abolished slavery across most of its empire in the 1830s, and the United States abolished it after the Civil War in 1865. But slavery remained [00:12:00] legal in Brazil until 1888. In 1888, former slaves were freed, but most remain trapped in poverty.
Empire Capital in Exile
One of the most fascinating stories in Rio’s history is that it was once the capital of a European empire. Not just the capital of Portuguese Brazil, it was the capital of the Portuguese Empire.
It was the only city in the Americas to ever become the capital of a European empire. It’s really rare for empires to move their capital cities to new continents, new countries. I can think of the Roman Empire moving their capital to Constantinople or Istanbul today as an example.
But in this case, Rio became the capital of the Portuguese Empire.
How? How did this happen?
Well, By the early 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte of France had conquered most of continental [00:13:00] Europe. He demanded that every European country stop trading with Britain.
But Portugal had been Britain’s closest ally for hundreds of years. The two countries depended on each other economically and militarily, and the Portuguese government did not want to abandon their relationship.
So Napoleon invaded Portugal. As Napoleon’s troops marched towards Lisbon in late 1807, Portugal’s royal family chose to escape. The British Royal Navy protected a fleet of boats carrying parts of Portugal’s royal family, royal officials, nobles, soldiers, servants, and thousands of other people.
They arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1808. Rio became the capital of the Portuguese Empire. No other European monarchy had ever moved its royal court and government to one of its colonies.
[00:14:00] As it was now home to the empire, the city quickly developed. The Prince Regent founded the Bank of Brazil, opened libraries and museums, and for the first time allowed a printing press to operate legally in Brazil. Brazil’s ports were also opened to friendly foreign nations for the first time, which ended Portugal’s monopoly over the colonial trade.
The Portuguese royal family had intended their stay to be temporary. Once Napoleon was defeated, they had expected to return to Lisbon. But by the time Napoleon had been defeated, Brazil had become too important and too powerful to just be another colony of Portugal.
When the king eventually returned to Europe, he left behind his son, Dom Pedro
Independence and Coffee Boom
On the 7th of September 1822, Dom Pedro made the decision to declare Brazil [00:15:00] independent from Portugal. Unlike many other countries in Latin America, Brazil’s independence was comparatively peaceful.
Dom Pedro became Emperor Pedro I, and the new nation was established as the Empire of Brazil, with Rio de Janeiro as its capital.
Coffee became the main part of the new empire’s economy. By the late 19th century, Brazil had become the world’s largest coffee producer. It supplied most of the coffee consumed in Europe and North America
Immigrants from Portugal, Italy, Germany, Spain, and other countries arrived looking for opportunities. Former slaves also moved into the city, hoping to build new lives. Rio became one of the largest cities in the Americas.
But this meant that many neighborhoods were overcrowded and diseases like yellow fever and smallpox could spread easily.
Modernization and Favelas
In the early 1900s, [00:16:00] Mayor Pereira Passos launched a program to renew the city. He was inspired by the redesign of Paris in the 19th century.
He ordered hundreds of old buildings to be demolished, replaced narrow streets with broader avenues, improved sanitation, and constructed impressive public buildings. He wanted to show Brazil was a modern nation.
However, thousands of poorer residents of Rio were forced out of their homes. Entire neighborhoods had been demolished, and the people living in those neighborhoods had nowhere left to go. There was nowhere affordable to live in the city center.
Many families had to settle on the surrounding hillsides. They built simple houses wherever they could find space. These informal settlements gradually became known as favelas.
Rio’s magnificent European-style boulevards existed [00:17:00] next to hillside slums. Those grand government buildings were next to working-class neighborhoods. And wealth existed alongside poverty.
Global Image and Lost Capital
Rio is, without a doubt, Brazil’s most internationally famous city. People who’ve never visited Brazil can probably picture Copacabana Beach, or the giant statue of Christ the Redeemer, or Rio’s colorful carnival parades.
Part of this image comes from Rio’s impressive geography. The city is in between mountains and tropical rainforests and the Atlantic Ocean. In 2012, UNESCO recognized parts of Rio’s landscape as a World Heritage Site.
The most famous landmark in the city is the statue of Christ the Redeemer. I actually recently talked about this statue a few months ago in my episode on the New Wonders of the World. And actually, in the bonus episode talking about [00:18:00] Other Wonders of the World, I included Guanabara Bay, which had been in CNN’s Natural Wonders of the World list. Rio is on two different Wonder of the World lists: Christ the Redeemer as a man-made wonder and Guanabara Bay as a natural wonder.
Football has also become inseparable from Rio’s identity. The city is home to legendary Brazilian clubs like Flamengo and Fluminense, Botafogo and Vasco da Gama. Rio also has the iconic Maracanรฃ Stadium, which was opened for the 1950 FIFA World Cup and was once the largest football stadium in the world.
In 1960, Rio lost its status as Brazil’s capital city. Instead, Brazil officially moved its capital to a brand-new city called Brasรญlia.
If you look at a map of Brazil, almost all of the major cities are located [00:19:00] along the Atlantic coast. The government hoped that by building a new capital in the middle of the country, Brasรญlia, they could encourage people and investment to spread across Brazil.
Rio remains, the cultural capital of Brazil. When a Hollywood movie wants to show Brazil, it often chooses Rio as the place to represent. And when international tourists dream of visiting Brazil, Rio is usually their first destination.
The city has also hosted some of the world’s biggest sporting events relatively recently, including the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Challenges Today
Today, Rio is one of the most unequal cities in Brazil. It has great wealth and middle-class neighborhoods, and also it has neighborhoods suffering with deep poverty.
The city’s favelas are often featured in international news coverage, and the news [00:20:00] often focuses on crime and poverty. That’s actually only a small part of the story.
More than a fifth, so more than 20%, of Rio’s population lives in favelas. But the vast majority of people living in favelas are ordinary people working and raising families. In recent years, many favela residents have worked to change how their neighborhoods are seen.
Guanabara Bay has also suffered from decades of pollution caused by untreated sewage and industrial waste. Before the 2016 Olympics, they promised to clean the bay, and although some progress has been made, it’s still not completely clean.
Tourism is also a major part of Rio’s economy. Tourism creates jobs, supports restaurants and hotels, and introduces millions of people to Brazilian culture every year.โ
Final Thought
Rio is a fascinating city. It was the capital of colonial Brazil, then the capital of the Portuguese Empire, and later the capital of an independent Brazilian empire, before eventually giving up that role to Brasilia.
It has had big roles in Brazil’s gold and coffee industries. It is a diverse city with African and European influences. It has great wealth and poverty, and it is located in one of the most beautiful natural landscapes anywhere on the planet.
As always, I’d love to know what you think.
Have you ever visited Rio de Janeiro? Are you from Rio de Janeiro? Is it somewhere you would like to visit in the future? And what city should I look at next in this series?
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