A TRISTE HISTÓRIA QUE DEU ORIGEM AO BAIRRO DO GUAMÁ EM BELÉM

The Guamá neighborhood in Belém, with just over 100,000 inhabitants, is considered the most populous neighborhood in the capital of Pará, according to the 2010 Census. Located on the banks of the Guamá River, in the southern part of Belém, its history begins in 1728. The 18th-century land grant records the concession of that area by the then Government of Grão-Pará and Maranhão to Theodoro Soares Pereira, a noble Portuguese sesmeiro who would come from Portugal to occupy these lands. Later, in 1746, in the vast and uninhabited area, the Mercedários founded the so-called "Fazenda Tucunduba," and, on the banks of the eponymous stream, a brickworks was installed to aid in the production of bricks and tiles for the growing city of Belém. It was precisely in the ruins of this brickworks that the so-called "Hospício dos Lázaros do Tucunduba" (Tucunduba Lazarus Hospice) would be established in the 19th century. In 1794, it was donated to the Santa Casa Hospital, following the expulsion of the religious by the Marquis of Pombal. In 1816, a shelter for Hansen's disease patients who mingled with the healthy population of the capital was established. It was the first leprosarium in the Amazon: the "Hospício dos Lázaros do Tucunduba." During the century, it was primarily a shelter for slaves who contracted leprosy and were abandoned on the streets by the slave owners of Grão-Pará. The predominance of slaves among the lepers of Tucunduba can also be seen in the list of patients from 1854, when, of the 74 collected, 62 were slaves. Because Black people were excluded from the solidarity network that attempted to treat white patients, they ended up confined and condemned to this isolation. Source: Old Belém and Dol