Pernambuco
Pernambuco
is located in the central-east of the Northeast region. It
covers an area of 98,281 km2 and as it lies in an east-west
bearing, the State has large stretches of forest, an arid
vegetation zone and the backlands. The coast has 187 km of
beaches with reefs and cliffs. At a distance of 545 km from the
coast is one of the most appreciated diving areas in the
country: the Parque Nacional de Fernando de Noronha.
The
history of Pernambuco dates back to the times of the first
colonization, in the 16th century, when Duarte Coelho
became the landlord of the captaincy that extended from the Rio
São Francisco to the Ilha de Itamaracá. He was
responsible for establishing the first sugarmills, which made
Permambuco one of the most important exportation centers of the
Brazilian colony.
The
wealth generated by sugarcane attracted Portuguese settlers who
brought with them a great
number of Africans to work in the mills.
So
much wealth aroused the greed of the Dutch. After a failed
attempt to take possession of Bahia, they attacked Olinda in
1630 and settled here for 24 years.
The
popular culture is emblematic, marked by the rhythm of the
maracatu and the ‘mangue’ beat. Luiz Gonzaga, in the song
Asa Branca, portrays the drought in the Northeast.
The
novelist Ariano Suassuna, brought up in Pernambuco, is on of the
greatest champions of regional culture. He founded the Armorial
Quintet in Recipe, a style that created a Brazilian Erudite
Chamber Music and popular roots music. And from literature, the
writers João Cabral de Melo Neto, Gilberto Freyre and
Manual Bandeira are distinguished. The Carnival in Recife beat
its own record by uniting more than one million Carnival
merrymakers in the Galo da Madrugada. In the typical cuisine,
the memorable dishes are buchada of goat, sarapatel and moqueca.
