GUIMARÃES - MA

Guimarães is a Brazilian municipality in the state of Maranhão. History The Portuguese colonization of the municipality began in the late 16th century, when the Portuguese Crown built a fort in Cumã Bay to monitor the movement of French people toward Alcântara or São Luís during disputes between the Portuguese and the French. Until then, the lands that make up the current municipality of Guimarães were occupied by villages of members of the Tupinambá Indigenous people, most notably the village of Guarapiranga. During the colonial dispute over the area that formed the captaincy of Maranhão between Portugal and France, when the French occupied the region to form their colony called France Equatorial, the Tupinambá formed an alliance with the French. However, following their defeat, the Indigenous people were massacred by the Portuguese, and the remaining inhabitants were settled in a settlement within a land grant granted to Portuguese settlers that would later become known as Fazenda Guarapiranga.[8] Guarapiranga was the name of the Tupinambá village, which means “red heron”, in allusion to the presence of scarlet ibises that adorn the blue sky and the green mangroves of this coast.