São Luís in Brazil

The capital and port of Maranhão state, founded in 1612 by the French and named after St Louis of France, stands upon São Luís island between the bays of São Marcos and São José. It's a beautiful city that rivals Recife and Salvador for colonial charm, and following extensive refurbishment it is in better condition than both. Like both cities, São Luís was a slaving port, initially for indigenous Amazonians who were brought in here in huge numbers to grow sugar cane, and subsequently for Africans. São Luís retains an African identity almost as strong as Salvador and Recife. The city is as Amazonian as it is northeastern and is subject to heavy tropical rains. However, a large proportion of the surrounding deep forest has been cut down to be replaced by babaçu palms, the nuts and oils of which are the state's most important products.

Getting there

Marechal Cunha Machado airport

receives flights from most Brazilian capitals via Fortaleza or Belém, as well as direct flights from Parnaíba and Teresina and international flights from the Guianas and Portugal.

Gol

and

Tam

have offices in the terminal, there is car rental, a tourist office, cyber-café, a

Banco do Brasil

and an office for the Lençóis Maranhenses tour company

Eco Dunas

Colectivo

mini-vans run from outside the terminal to Praça Deodoro in the city centre.

From the

rodoviária

the bus marked 'Rodoviária via Alemanha' runs to Praça João Lisboa in the centre.

Ferries cross the bay from Alcântara to the São Luís docks,

Terminal Hidroviário

usually in the afternoon.

Tourist information

Central de Servicos Turísticos, www.turismo.ma.gov.br, and São Luís Turismo, www.saoluisturismo.com.br, have useful websites. Also see http://saoluis-ma.com.br. Look out for Corbis photographer Barnabás Bosshart's masterfully photographed map-guides to São Luís and Alcântara.

Sights

The old part of the city, on very hilly ground with many steep streets, has been beautifully restored and is replete with colonial art nouveau and art deco buildings. The damp climate encouraged the use of ceramic

azulejo

tiles for exterior walls.

Azulejos

are a common sight in Portugal but their civic use is relatively rare in Brazil; São Luís displays a greater quantity and variety than anywhere else in the country. Most of the tiles are Portuguese (particularly from Porto), with a handful of print designs from Holland and France.

A good place to start a tour of the centre is

Avenida Dom Pedro II

. This was the heart of the original Tupinambá island village of Upaon Açu. When the French arrived in 1612, captained by Daniel de la Touche, they planted a huge wooden cross in the ground and, with a solemn Mass, decreed the land for France. La Touche renamed the village after Louis XIII, the emperor of France, and declared it the capital of the new land of 'France Equinoxiale' (Equinoctial France). There is a bust of La Touche in the 17th-century

Palácio de la Ravardière

Part of the original wall of the French fort still remains in the bulwarks of the

Palácio dos Leões

which was extensively embellished by the Portuguese after they re-conquered the city in 1615. When Maranhão became part of the newly independent Brazil in the l9th century, the palace was taken over by the governor. The rooms are furnished with period antiques from Portugal,

France and the UK, with a series of paintings by artists including Vitor Meirelles, who was responsible for Imperial Brazil's most famous painting:

A Batalha de Guararapes

. The building

is replete with stunning tropcial dark

jacarandá

wood and light

cerejeira

polished floors; visitors are required to use carpet slippers. There are marvellous views from the terrace.

Together with neighbouring Belém, Portuguese São Luís was the centre of a voracious slave trade.

Banderiante

expeditions roamed far into the interior capturing indigenous men, murdering their wives and children and bringing the prisoners to Maranhão to work on the cane fields. Entire Amazon civilizations, including the

Omagua

, were wiped-out this way. The Jesuits were appalled by the cruelty and their most famous politician-priest, Antônio Vieira , came to São Luís as a missionary to protest against the slave trade in 1653: “At what a different price the devil buys souls today compared with what he used to offer for them! There is no market in the world where the devil can get them more cheaply than in our own land ... In Maranhão ... what a cheap market! An Indian for a soul! That Indian will be your slave for the few days that he lives; but your soul will be enslaved for eternity... Break the chains of injustice and free those whom you hold captive and oppressed! ... It is better to live from your own sweat than from the blood of others”. The naves of São Luís's churches once echoed with his hell fire sermons, including the simple

Catedral da Sé

(1629), with its beautiful 19th-century baroque altarpiece,

Nossa Senhora do Carmo

(1627), which has an extraordinary, elaborate façade, and the

Igreja do Desterro

which was perhaps the first church built in the city. Vieira was eventually driven out of the city and went to Pará where he met with similar failure.

Before he left, Vieira inaugurated the

Convento das Mercês

which houses copies of his 17th-century sermons, along with numerous rare Portuguese and French books (available on request). The main body of the convent is given over to exhibits devoted to Brazilian presidency of Jose Sarney, a former Maranhão senator of dubious repute, whose dynasty continues to rule over Brazil's poorest state with an iron hand, and reap the benefits.

Miraculously some indigenous groups managed to avoid the ravages of the slave trade and still survive in Maranhão. Their cultures are touched upon, from an old-fashioned anthropological perspective, in the

Casa de Nhozinho

There are also exhibitions devoted to Maranhão

caboclo

life. Nhozinho, who came from Curupuru and gives the house its name, was a famous local wooden toy maker in the mid-20th century.

When the

indígenas

died from exhaustion and the slave trade ran dry, Maranhão and the rest of Brazil turned to Africa for their slaves, thus beginning the world's largest skin trade. Like Salvador and Recife, the strong African heritage is celebrated most powerfully in the city's exuberant music and festivals. São Luís is famous for reggae, but this is just the commercial tip of a huge musical iceberg. The exuberance and variety of music can be sampled on any weekend night throughout the year with

cacuriá

dancing and live shows, but becomes most obvious in May and June during the local festivals of

Bumba-Me-Boi

in São Luís, and the syncretistic

Festo do Divino

in Alcântara.

The

Centro de Cultura Popular Domingos Vieira Filho

(

Casa da Festa

)

has exhibitions on

the

Festa do Divino

, together with the African-Brazilian

Tambor-de-Mina

spirit religion (similar to

candomblé

), and Christmas festivities. The old customs building,

Casa do Maranhão

houses a museum devoted to the

Bumba-Meu-Boi

festival and Maranhão music. Downstairs is an exhibition hall with artefacts, costumes and video shows of previous Bumba festivals. Upstairs is a series of rooms devoted to a different Bumba-Meu-Boi African-Brazilian rhythm and instruments associated with the festival.

The centre of the African slave trade in the city was the

Cafua das Mercês

.It is now a museum of African-Brazilian culture with an extensive collection of musical and religious instruments, clothing and cultural artefacts. The

Casa das Minas

is one of the oldest sacred spaces in Brazil for African-Brazilian religions and is an important centre of black culture in São Luís.

There are numerous other buildings of interest. Although the prettiest and liveliest colonial streets are

Rua Portugal

and

Rua do Giz

(28 de Julho), it is Caixa Econômica Federal in the 19th-century

Edifício São Luís

that preserves what is probably the largest

azulejo-

fronted building in the Americas. It now houses a bank. The

Teatro Arthur de Azevedo

is a very handsome 19th-century theatre restored to its original spendour in the 1990s. Some of the city's best performances are held here. The

Centro Histórico Solar dos Vasconcelos

is a fine colonial town house devoted to the history of the city with many interesting paintings, photographs and exhibits. The first floor of the

Museu de Artes Visuais

has a collection of some of the city's most precious and intricate European

azulejos

, mostly from Portugal but with some pieces from England, Holland and Belgium. Upstairs is a collection of important Brazilian art including pieces by Tarsila do Amaral, Cícero Dias and Alfredo Volpi.

This is edited copy from Footprint Handbooks. For comprehensive details (incl address, tel no, directions, opening times and prices) please refer to book or individual chapter PDF

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