The South Region of Brazil is one of the five regions of Brazil. It includes the states of Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul and covers, being the smallest portion of the country, occupying only about 6.76% of the territory of Brazil. Its whole area is smaller than that of the state of Minas Gerais, in Southeast Brazil, for example. It is a great tourist, economic and cultural pole. It borders Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay, as well as the Centre-West and Southeast regions, and the Atlantic Ocean. The region is considered the safest in Brazil to visit, having a lower crime rate than other regions in the country.
History
Pre-Columbian history
By the time the first European explorers arrived, all parts of the territory were inhabited by semi-nomadic hunter-gathererIndian tribes. They subsisted on a combination of hunting, fishing, and gathering.
European colonization in Southern Brazil started with the arrival of Portuguese and SpanishJesuit missionaries. They lived among the Indians and converted them to Catholicism. Colonists from São Paulo arrived in the same period. For decades, the Portuguese and Spanish crowns disputed over this region. Due to this conflict, the King of Portugal encouraged the immigration of settlers from the Azores Islands to Southern Brazil, in an attempt to build up a Portuguese population. Between 1748 and 1756, six thousand Azoreans arrived. They composed over half of the population of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina by the late 18th century.
The first German immigrants came to Brazil soon after it gained independence in 1822 from Portugal. They were recruited to work as small farmers because there were many land holdings without sufficient workers. To attract the immigrants, the Brazilian government had promised them large tracts where they could settle with their families and colonize the region. The first immigrants arrived in 1824, settling in the city ofSao Leopoldo. Over the next four decades, another 27,256 Germans were brought to Rio Grande do Sul to work as smallholders in the country. By 1904, it is estimated that 50,000 Germans had settled in this state. In Santa Catarina, most German immigrants were not brought by the Brazilian government but by private groups that promoted the immigration of Europeans to the Americas, such as the Hamburg Colonization Society. These groups created rural communities or colonies for immigrants, many of which developed into large cities, such as Blumenau and Joinville, the largest city in Santa Catarina. Considerable numbers of immigrants from Germany arrived at Paraná during the civil war, most of them coming from Santa Catarina; others were Volga Germans from Russia.
The Ragamuffin War was a Republican uprising that began in Southern Brazil in 1835. The rebels, led by generals Bento Gonçalves da Silva and Antônio de Souza Netto with the support of the Italian warrior Giuseppe Garibaldi, surrendered to imperial forces in 1845. This conflict occurred because in Rio Grande do Sul, the state's main product, the charque, suffered stiff competition from charque from Uruguay and Argentina. The imports had free access to the Brazilian market while gaúchos had to pay high taxes to sell their product inside Brazil. The Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the rebels in 1839. With his help the revolution spread through Santa Catarina, in the northern border of Rio Grande do Sul. After many conflicts, in 1845 peace negotiations ended the war.
Italian settlement
started arriving in Brazil in 1875. They were mostly peasants from the Veneto in Northern Italy attracted to Southern Brazil for economic opportunities and the chance to acquire their own lands. Most of the immigrants worked as small farmers, mainly cultivating grapes in the Serra Gaúcha. Italian immigration to the region lasted until 1914, with a total of 100,000 Italians settling in Rio Grande do Sul in this period, and many others in Santa Catarina and Paraná. In 1898, there were a total of 300,000 people of Italian origin in Rio Grande do Sul; 50,000 in Santa Catarina; and 30,000 in Paraná. Today their Southern Brazilian descendants number 9.7 million and comprise 35.9% of Southern Brazil's population.
Demographics
As noted, the region received numerous European immigrants during the 19th century, who have had a large influence on its demography and culture. The main ethnic origins of Southern Brazil are Portuguese, Italian, German, Austrian, Luxembourger, Polish, Ukrainian, Spanish, Dutch and Russian. Smaller numbers that follow are French, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Black, Swiss, Croat, Lebanese, Lithuanian and Latvian, Japanese, Finnish and Estonian, Belarusian, Slovene, Ashkenazi Jew, Caboclo, British, Czech, Slovak, Belgian and Hungarian
The region is highly urbanized and many cities are famous for their urban planning, like Curitiba and Maringá, both in Paraná State. It has a relatively high standard of living, with the highest Human Development Index of Brazil, 0.859, and the second highest per capita income of the country, $13.396, behind only the Southeast Region. The region also has a 98.3% literacy rate.
Languages
Portuguese, the official language of Brazil, is spoken by the entire population. In the south countryside, dialects of German or Italian origins are also spoken. The predominant dialects are Hunsrückisch and Venetian. In Rio Grande do Sul and Curitiba there are some Yiddish speakers. In the northern region of Paraná there are some Japanese speakers. In the region around Ponta Grossa there are also some Dutch speakers. There are Polish language and Ukrainian language speakers in Paraná as well. Indigenous languages still spoken in some villages include Guarani and Kaingang.
