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Ouro Preto is the jewel in the crown of Minas Gerais's colonial towns. It was Brazil's wealthiest city during the 18th-century gold boom. Besides being an open-air museum, Ouro Preto is also a major university town, with a youthful and vibrant ambience. Minas Gerais was the gold mining centre of Brazil, during the 18th century.
The gold rush would be one of the largest in the world and would produce the largest gold mines in South America. With the discovery of gold by Bandeirantes in the mountains of Minas Gerais . [ 11 ] This caused many people from the north of Brazil to go down south in hopes of finding gold.
In contrast to other regions of colonial Brazil, people coming to Minas Gerais settled mostly in villages instead of the countryside. In 1763, the capital of colonial Brazil was transferred from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro, which was located closer to the mining region and provided a harbor to ship the gold to Europe.
More than 400,000 Portuguese and 500,000 African slaves came to the gold region to mine. Many people abandoned the sugar plantations and towns in the northeast coast to migrate to the gold region. By 1725, half the population of Brazil were living in the country's southeast. Officially, 800 metric tons of gold were sent to Portugal in the 18th ...
The gold and tumbaga (a gold-silver-copper alloy elaborated by the Muisca) created the legend of El Dorado; the "land, city or man of gold". The Spanish conquistadors who landed in the Caribbean city of Santa Marta were informed of the rich gold culture and led by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada and his brother Hernán Pérez , organised the most ...
A number of former gold mines in the city offer tours to tourists. One of the most well known is the Mina do Chico Rei, near the sanctuary of Nossa Senhora da Conceição. Another infamous mine is the Mina da passagem. In the early 19th century, Portugal gave the United Kingdom exclusive use of this mine for 100 years to pay Portugal's ...
The legendary king of El Dorado being anointed with gold dust by his attendants. El Dorado (Spanish: [el doˈɾaðo], English: / ˌ ɛ l d ə ˈ r ɑː d oʊ /) is a mythical city of gold supposedly located somewhere in South America. The king of this city was said to be so rich that he would cover himself from head to foot in gold dust ...
The most populous emigration of the 17th century was that of the English, who after a series of wars with the Dutch and French came to dominate the Thirteen Colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States and other colonies such as Newfoundland and Rupert's Land in what is now Canada. [23]