Laguna, Santa Catarina
Laguna, Santa Catarina
Santa Catarina Laguna, a seaport in southern Brazil, founded in 1684 by Domingos de Brito Peixoto. In an effort to drive out the encroaching Spanish Jesuits, the Portuguese crown encouraged settlement at Laguna. Between 1682 and 1706 the Spanish Jesuits founded the missions of the Seven Peoples, the Sete Povos, which flourished in what is now Rio Grande do Sul. The presence of the Sete Povos threatened Portuguese territorial ambitions in the region. Moving with geopolitical and economic motivations, Portugal staked its claim to the region. Settled by Paulistas and Azorean couples sent by the crown, Laguna quickly became part of Portuguese Brazil. By 1694 settlers had transformed the region from a farming-fishing community to one dependent on grazing. Laguna later developed into an out-migration area as Lagunistas themselves migrated south to the plains of Rio Grande do Sul. In the eighteenth century a newly opened road for the livestock trade linked Laguna to São Paulo and the mines of Minas Gerais.
See alsoBrazil, Geography .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Leslie Bethell, ed., The Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 2 (1984), p. 472.
Rollie E. Poppino, Brazil: The Land and People, 2d ed. (1973), p. 83
Additional Bibliography
Brancher, Ana, Silvia Maria Fávero Arend, and Rodrigo Lavina. História de Santa Catarina, séculos XVI a XIX. Florianópolis: Editora da UFSC, 2004.
Orlando R. Aragona