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To
Garcia D'Ávila, named General Almoxarife by Tomé de Souza,
first Governor, was assigned in 1551 the task of constructing a building
to protect the coast to the north of Salvador from Dutch attacks. The
cove of Tatuapara gave protection to the fishing boats and to the whales,
whose fat was used to bind the stones and shells of the House of the Towe.
In 1553 they brought the coconut palm from Asia for cultivation, they
initiated extraction of gold and precious stones, and the cattle grass
and corrals advanced as far as the state today known as Maranhão,
forming a large state of eight hundred thousand square kilometros! Most
of the construction was concluded in 1624 by Francisco Dias D'Ávila,
the third and most powerful generation of the family.
Successive hereditary divisions reduced the farm of coconut and cattle
to 12 km of beach and about 40 square km of land. It was sold in 1835
to the Padilla, acquired in the 1960’s by an industralist of São
Paulo of German origin, Klaus Peters. In the village, old native became
owners of the their lands, the country land remains ranched with cattle,
and the coconut coast was divided in an urbanization with modern criteria
of controlled grow and use. The Castle, protected by the Institute of
the Historical Patrimony through the Foundation Garcia D'Ávila,
and the Sapiranga, a reserve of Atlantic Forest border the Poyuca River.
Any similarity with Macondo is mere coincidence. |
