Brief account of the emergence of the city of Manaus

Manaus emerged around a fortress made of clay and stones, without a moat, in the middle of the 17th century. Created by the Portuguese in 1669, the São José da Barra do Rio Negro Fort served mainly to combat the troops of the Lusitanian enemies when the Amazon region became the target of Dutch, English, French and Irish interests, which also ensured that the Portuguese explored the region and guaranteed their dominion in the Amazon. It was around this fort that the settlement called Lugar da Barra developed, giving rise years later to the city of Manaus. In mid 1755 it became the seat of the Capitania (district) due to its strategic geographical position on the left bank of the Negro River.

Approximately in 1832 it was elevated from Capitania to Vila da Barra, and only on October 24, 1848, to Cidade da Barra de São José do Rio Negro. There are reports that when it received the title of city, the place was just a heap of urban area with only one square, sixteen streets with almost 250 houses and about three thousand inhabitants.

Later on, when Amazonas was elevated from a district to an autonomous province, on September 5th, 1850, it definitely separated from the Grão-Pará Province, to which it was still subordinated. The city of Barra de São José do Rio Negro was renamed to Manaos on September 4th, 1856. The origin of the name comes from the indigenous tribe of the Manáos, which means "Mother of the Gods. They, the Manáos, Barés, Baniwa and Passés, inhabited this region in large numbers well before the arrival of the colonizers, but were soon decimated and finally extinguished as a result of the great massacre made against the Indians during the Portuguese colonization of the Amazon region. Most of the Indians were in constant conflict with the inhabitants of the fort, precisely because they refused to be dominated and to serve as slave labor for the colonizers.