History of the State of São Paulo

Engraving of André Thevet from the 16th century depicting Tupinambá Indians smoking

The region of the current state of São Paulo has been inhabited by indigenous peoples since approximately 12,000 BC [2] Around 1000, its coastline was invaded by people from linguistic trunk Tupi from Amazon.[3] At the time of the arrival of Europeans, in the 16th century, the majority indigenous people in the region were the Tupinambás, Tupiniquins and Carijós, on the coast; and peoples of the linguistic trunk macro-jê, in the interior.[3][4]

"Foundation of São Vicente", by Benedito Calixto

At the beginning of the 16th century, the São Paulo coast had already been visited by Portuguese and Spanish navigators, but only in 1532 did the foundation of the first settlement of European origin, São Vicente, in the current Baixada Santista, by Martim Afonso de Sousa. With the creation of Vila de São Vicente, the first parliament was installed in America: the Vila de São Vicente Chamber. The first elections were also held on the American continent.[5][6][7]

The search for precious metals led the Portuguese to overtake Serra do Mar, by the old indigenous path of Peabiru and, in 1554, on the plateau existing after Serra do Mar, the village of São Paulo de Piratininga by the Jesuits led by Manuel da Nóbrega.[6][7]

Until the end of the 16th century, the Portuguese founded other villages around the plateau, such as Santana de Parnaíba, thus guaranteeing the security and livelihood of the village of São Paulo.[5][6][7]

The name São Vicente was given by Amerigo Vespucci, on January 22, 1502, on a trip that aimed to map the coast of Brazil. When he passed through the region, he found two island s, where today the cities of Santos and São Vicente are located in São Vicente Island and the city of Guarujá on the island of Santo Amaro and the estuary, which he found to be a river. It was named after one of the patron saints of Portugal, Saint Vincent of Saragossa.[5][6][7]

The first settlements of São Vicente were also unofficial. There the Bachelor of Cananeia was abandoned. According to many historians es, he was the Portuguese Cosme Fernandes Pessoa, the true founder of São Vicente, from where he actually governed and controlled the trade of the region. According to document found by the Portuguese Jaime Cortesão, the Bachelor would have lived in Brazil before the arrival of Cabral: The exile is mentioned in a document dated 24 April 1499, discovered by Courtesan, who reports on an unofficial trip by Bartolomeu Dias to Brazil. Another document, from 1526, describes the village of São Vicente, stating that it would have a dozen houses s, only one of stone, with one tower for defense.[5][6][7]

Cosme Fernandes Pessoa was accused with the King of Portugal, by two friends who in return received donations in land s, of maintaining relations with Spaniards who lived further south, with danger to Portuguese domination in the region. Martim Afonso de Sousa left for Brazil with several goals. The first was to officially establish the colonization of Brazil, confirming the power of the crown. As a consequence, he subtracted the power from Cosme Fernandes Pessoa's hands.[6][7]

Warned, the Bachelor burned down the place and withdrew with his people to Cananeia.[5][6][7]

Martim Afonso de Sousa, Portuguese nobleman and explorer

Martim Afonso de Sousa officially founded the village of São Vicente in the place where the previous ruins were, on the date of January 22, 1532. In 1536 the Bacharel de Cananeia (or Bacharel Cosme) attacked, looted and he burned the village, hanging his former friend and traitor Henrique Montes. This is the last historical record about the Bachelor of Cananeia. Martim Afonso de Sousa distributed sesmarias and made several buildings, leaving São Vicente populated and organized.[5][6][7]

The port of São Vicente was the target of the first major ecological disaster in Brazil: the land by the sea was cleaned and cultivated. Since the land is sandy and the soil has lost its protective layer, the rains took the sand to the sea, silting the port of São Vicente. Martim Afonso de Sousa left São Vicente on May 22, 1533], leaving the administration in the hands of his wife Dona Ana Pimentel (first grantee in Brazil). In turn, D. Ana Pimentel appointed Brás Cubas as Captain-Major and ombudsman for Captaincy of São Vicente, which, due to the silting of Porto , the only way of communicating with the Portuguese Metropolis and the attack by the Bachelor of Cananeia on São Vicente, decided to set up a new port in the Enguaguaçu region, a more protected place, where the port was transferred in 1536, establishing a settlement there. The simple fact that the name of the place is indigenous, not Portuguese, shows that the initiative was not official. Brás Cubas attracted settlers from nearby areas and founded a settlement, which in the future would be called Santos, and promoted improvements, such as the construction of the first Santa Casa in Brazil. Thus São Vicente goes into decline.[5][6][7]

Although there are reports of the existence of Portuguese women in the fleet of Martim Afonso de Sousa, written records have not yet been found. The first written record regarding Portuguese women coming to Brazil dates from 1550. Thus, the mothers were generally mamelucas or Indias.[5][6][7]

The founding of São Vicente on the São Paulo coast started the process of colonization of Brazil as a systematic policy of the Portuguese government, motivated by the presence of foreigners who threatened land tenure.[8] Evidently, before there was already a nucleus that, like others in the coastal regions, was made up of castaway probably dated to the beginning of the 16th century. However, it was during the stay of Martim Afonso de Sousa that, on January 20, 1532, the village of São Vicente was founded and with it the first effective landmark of Brazilian colonization was established.[7][9]

The name of São Vicente extended to the hereditary captaincy donated to the same Martim Afonso de Sousa by the King of Portugal in 1534. Thus, the first name of the current state of São Paulo was captaincy of São Vicente.[5][6][7][9]

"Biquinha de Anchieta", in São Vicente, a scene of the catechism classes of Jesuit priest José de Anchieta

In spite of the countless difficulties to cross the Serra do Mar, the fields of the plateau soon attracted the settlers, which made São Paulo an exception in the type of colonization of the Portuguese of the early days, who settled mainly on the coast . Thus, in 1553, Portuguese settlers founded the Vila de Santo André da Borda do Campo. In the following year, the priests of Companhia de Jesus founded, on a hill in Piratininga, a college for the Indians, the birthplace of the village of São Paulo. In 1560, Vila de Santo André was extinct and its residents were transferred to São Paulo de Piratininga.[5][6][7]

The coastal strip, narrow due to the presence of Serra do Mar, did not have the necessary conditions for the development of large crops. In turn, the plateau faced the serious obstacle of the Caminho do Mar, which, instead of connecting, isolated the region of Piratininga, denying it access to the ocean and, therefore, the ease of transportation. As a result, the captaincy was relegated to an inferior economic plan, prevented from successfully cultivating the main agricultural product of colonial Brazil, sugarcane, and from competing with the main sugar zone of the time, represented by Pernambuco and Bahia.[5][6][7]

In Piratininga, a subsistence polyculture was established, based on forced labor by the Indian. The inventories of the first paulistas showed a small amount of imports and a complete absence of luxury. The isolation created a peculiar society in the plateau. Arriving in São Paulo required special fiber in the fight against the difficulties of access to the mountains, the attacks by the Indians, the hunger, the diseases, which would lead the European immigration to a strict selective process. Such living conditions would determine the formation of a society in a more democratic way than that of the one that had established itself further north of the colony.[5][6][7]

The proliferation of mamelucos, resulting from the inevitable and intense crossing with the indigenous peoples of the land, belonging to the Tupi tribes that dominated the Brazilian coast, contributed to a great extent. In São Paulo, especially, the Luso-Tupi hybridism in its ethnic-cultural aspect would not be attenuated as quickly as it happened in other regions where the flow of blacks and the easier contact with the metropolis came to dilute it. More than anywhere else, the Portuguese would know, in the shadow of an exceptional ability to adapt, to integrate certain cultural traits of the Tupis that would allow him to survive—and more, to take advantage of the hostile backlands.[5][6][7]

Statue of Antônio Raposo Tavares, one of the most famous bandeirantes, at the Museu Paulista in São Paulo.

Economic difficulties, backwoodsmanliness, geographic location (São Paulo was an important center for river and land circulation), a spirit of adventure, would be powerful impulses in the rush to the hinterland. Since the early days of colonization, the attacks were constant, in a defensive bandeirismo that aimed to guarantee the "São Paulo expansion" of the 17th century. This would be the great century of flags, the one in which the offensive bandeirismo itself would begin, whose purpose was in large part the immediate profit provided by hunting the Indian. From the village of São Paulo, the arrest flags headed by Antônio Raposo Tavares, Manuel Preto, André Fernandes, among others, departed.[5][10]

The peculiar conditions of life on the plateau allowed the paulistas, during the first two centuries, to enjoy considerable autonomy in sectors such as defense, relations with the Indians, ecclesiastical administration, public works and municipal services, price control and goods. The city halls, composed of "good men" of the land, were rarely contained within their legitimate attributions; in São Paulo, especially, its independence almost made Portuguese government forget.[10][11]

Monument to the Bandeiras,in the Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo.

From the bandeirismo of arrest, the mining bandeirismo was changed, when the activity of Borba Gato, Bartolomeu Bueno da Silva, Pascoal Moreira Cabral and others was rewarded with the meeting of gold veins in Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso. A hard ordeal was the effect of the discovery of gold on São Paulo and other villages on the plateau: all sought the immediate enrichment represented by the precious metal. As José Joaquim Machado de Oliveira said, "there was no Paulista who, more or less, stopped stroking the thought of discovering mines".[10][11]

Thus, the population of the Brazilian backlands was made at the sacrifice of the inhabitants of São Paulo and at the expense of the population density of the captaincy. This demographic rupture, combined with the geographical factors already mentioned (the Serra do Mar), caused a fall in agricultural productivity, as well as a decline in other activities, which accentuated the people's poverty during the 18th century. The captaincy, which then covered the entire region of the gold discoveries, was transferred to the crown and there was installed its own government in 1709, separate from the government of Rio de Janeiro and with headquarters in town of São Paulo, elevated to city in 1711.[10][11]

At the end of the 17th century, bandeirantes from São Paulo discovered gold in the region of Rio das Mortes, close to the current São João del-Rei. The discovery of the immense gold deposits provokes a race towards Minas Gerais, as the numerous gold deposits by explorers from both São Paulo and other parts of the colony were called at the time.[12]

Administrative division of Brazil after War of the Emboabas.

As discoverers of the mines, the paulistas demanded exclusivity in the exploration of gold, but they were won in 1710 with the end of Guerra dos Emboabas, losing control of Minas Gerais, which became an autonomous captaincy in 1721. The gold extracted from Minas Gerais would be drained via Rio de Janeiro. As compensation, Vila de São Paulo is elevated to the status of city in 1711.[12]

The exodus towards Minas Gerais caused the economic decline in the captaincy, and throughout the 18th century it lost territory and economic dynamism until it was simply annexed in 1748 to the captaincy of Rio de Janeiro. Thus, shortly before being annexed to Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo lost territory for the creation of Capitania de Goiás and Capitania do Mato Grosso. These two captaincies today correspond to the states of Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, Goiás, Tocantins, Federal District and the Triângulo Mineiro.[13]

Some authors have contested this version of the captaincy's decay. The main argument that leads historians to defend this thesis is the stabilization of the number of villages that arose in the period. However, the number of inhabitants would not have decreased, only concentrated in the existing villages, and its population, despite not directly profiting from the mines, dominated the supply of food, mainly linked to livestock. The main justification for the annexation to Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro was the security of mines, since São Paulo would be their natural shield against invasions from Argentina or other Spanish colonies (ironically the same argument used for years later).[13]

Map of the province of São Paulo (1886).

The governor of the Captaincy of Minas Gerais, Luís Diogo Lobo da Silva, on September 24, 1764, annexed the left bank of the Sapucaí River, current Mesoregion of the South and Southwest of Minas, extending the limits of Minas Gerais, approximately, to the current border with São Paulo. This territory would never be recovered by São Paulo even after the recreation of the captaincy. This region annexed by Minas Gerais, however, continued to belong to Archdiocese of São Paulo.[13]

In 1765, through the efforts of Morgado de Mateus the Captaincy of São Paulo was reinstated and this promoted a policy of incentive to the production of sugar to guarantee the sustenance of the captaincy. The captaincy was restored, however, with about a third of its original territory, comprising only the current states of São Paulo and Paraná and part of Santa Catarina.[13]

Morgado de Mateus created the village of Lages and Campo Mourão to defend the captaincy. Several other villages were created, a fact that has not occurred since the beginning of the 18th century in São Paulo.[13]

Thus, the villages of Campinas and Piracicaba are founded in the east of São Paulo, a favorable region for such cultivation, where sugar cane soon develops. Sugar is exported through the port of Santos and reaches its peak at the beginning of 19th century.[13]

The captaincy of São Paulo gains political weight, during the time of Independence of Brazil, by the figure of José Bonifácio de Andrada, and on September 7, 1822, independence is proclaimed on the banks of the stream Ipiranga, in São Paulo, by Dom Pedro I. In 1821 the captaincy becomes a province.[13]

In 1820, D. João VI annexed Lages to Santa Catarina, losing São Paulo a little more of its territory.[13]

In 1853, the province of Paraná was created, and São Paulo lost, for the last time, territory, remaining from that date with its current territory.[13]

The current currencies of the state of São Paulo were only definitively fixed in the 1930s.[13]

In 1817 the first coffee farm in São Paulo is founded, in the Paraíba do Sul river valley,[14] and, after independence, coffee cultivation gains strength in the lands of the Vale do Paraíba region, rapidly enriching cities such as Guaratinguetá, Bananal, Lorena and Pindamonhangaba.

Bolsa do Café in Santos

In the coffee farms in the Paraíba Valley, slave labor was used on a large scale, and the beans were disposed of via Rio de Janeiro. As a result, the Valley quickly enriches itself, generating a rural oligarchy, but the rest of the province remains dependent on sugar cane [15] and the commerce that is being established in the city of São Paulo, driven by the foundation of a law school in 1827.[16] São Paulo also began to develop as a city, opening its first receptive establishments to travelers, students and merchants who wanted to know the place or to establish projects. Pensions, hotels and inns started to be regulated and grew in number, providing options for accommodation, comfort and leisure.[17]

However, the exhaustion of the soils of the Paraíba Valley and the increasing difficulties imposed on the regime slavery lead to a decline in coffee cultivation in 1860 in that region. The Valley empties itself economically while the cultivation of coffee migrates towards the West of São Paulo, first entering the region of Campinas and Itu, replacing the cultivation of sugar cane carried out until then.

The migration of coffee to the west causes major economic and social changes in the Province. The ban on the slave trade in 1850 leads to the need to search for a new form of labor for the new crops. The immigration of Europeans started to be encouraged by the Imperial and provincial government.[17] The grain flow is now made via the port of Santos, which leads to the foundation of the first São Paulo railroad, the São Paulo Railway, inaugurated in 1867, built by English capitals and Visconde de Mauá, linking Santos to Jundiaí, passing through São Paulo, which begins to become an important warehouse commercial between the coast and the coffee interior.[17]

Café being shipped at the Port of Santos in 1880, by Marc Ferrez.

The coffee gradually enters western São Paulo, passing through Campinas, Rio Claro and Porto Ferreira; in 1870, the penetration of culture finds its most fertile fields of cultivation: the purple lands of northeast São Paulo, close to Ribeirão Preto, São Carlos and Jaú where the largest and most productive coffee farms in the world arose.[18]

Behind new lands for coffee, explorers enter the hitherto unknown quadrilateral between the Serra de Botucatu and the Paraná, Tietê and Paranapanema rivers, where they founded cities such as Bauru, Marília, Garça, Araçatuba and Presidente Prudente at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.[18]

São Paulo's borders are fixed with the emancipation of Paraná in 1853. The south of São Paulo (Vale do Ribeira and the region of Itapeva) do not attract coffee cultivation and suffer from border disputes between São Paulo and Paraná, thus being put on the margins of the development of the rest of the province, becoming, until today, the poorest regions of São Paulo.[18]

The enrichment caused by coffee and the constant arrival of immigrants Italians, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese and Arabs to the Province, in addition to the development of a large network railroad, bring prosperity to São Paulo.[19][20][21][22]

When the republic was installed, the new state's economic predominance was clearly affirmed. If Brazil was coffee, coffee was São Paulo. This reality had repercussions in the national sphere, hence the homogeneity of 1894 to 1902, in three consecutive quadrenniums, with the presidents Prudente de Morais, Campos Sales and Rodrigues Alves .[19]

At the beginning of the 20th Century, with the advance of the railroads towards Paraná River dozens of municipalities are created along the railroads Estrada de Ferro Sorocabana, NOB and Companhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro. West São Paulo is occupied for the first time. Because it was populated along the railroads, western São Paulo was divided into regions called "Zona da Paulista", "Zona da Sorocabana", "Zona da Noroeste" and "Zona da Araraquarense". The railways were built in the highest regions most suitable for coffee, the so-called spikes, less subject to frost.[19]

Luz Station, one of the symbols of São Paulo's power at the height of Republic of coffee with milk.

São Paulo entered with two trump cards in the republican era: the wealth represented by coffee and the free labor system, which had been introduced before the abolition of slavery and had already adapted and integrated into the production mode of São Paulo agriculture. On the other hand, the local autonomy conferred by the new federative regime, which in view of the broad rights conferred on the states resulted, in practice, in a real sovereignty, came to reinforce politically and administratively the advantages conferred by the two factors mentioned above.[23]

Thus equipped, benefiting from the institutional weakness resulting from the Proclamation of the Republic of Brazil, São Paulo combined its economic power with the electoral strength of Minas Gerais and established the coffee with milk politics, which resulted in a change in federalism in Brazil, the results of which are still visible today. For this, the business vision of his businessmen, coffee growers mainly, who, even in the empire, had learned to use political power in defense of their economic interests, also competed. They immediately perceived the opportunity of introducing foreign immigrants and subsidized them with resources from the province, since the imperial government paid more attention to the establishment of colonial nuclei than to salaried immigration. With the new situation created by the institution of the republican regime, they were able to expand their means of action. From then on, until the 1929 crisis, they did not lose sight of the expansion and defense of the product that sustained the region's economy.[23][24]

Despite the internal dissensions and several dissidents, the Partido Republicano Paulista (PRP) managed to maintain great cohesion in the face of the Union, which allowed it to carry forward a policy that satisfied, in general, the dominant interests and that, undeniably, contributed to the prestige of São Paulo within the federation.[24]

However, the first republican moments in São Paulo were not peaceful. They reflected the agitations and mistakes that occurred at the federal level. As in the other states, a provisional governing board was established. Then he was appointed governor Prudente de Morais, who soon resigned. The state government then passed to Jorge Tibiriçá, appointed by Deodoro.[25]

Deodoro da Fonseca, proclaimer of the Brazilian republic

In 1890 the era of political dissension was inaugurated within the PRP, with the opposition exerted by the Centro Republicano de Santos, which, in a manifesto of August 24, 1890, launched the candidacy of Américo Brasiliense de Almeida e Melo. The faculty of law was agitated, while the main republican figures of São Paulo, such as Prudente de Morais, Campos Sales, Bernardino de Campos and Francisco Glicério de Cerqueira Leite, among others, were concerned about the authoritarianism of the marshal Deodoro da Fonseca. He removed Jorge Tibiriçá and delegated power, in 1891, to Américo Brasiliense, which Deodoro da Fonseca considered the only one capable of organizing São Paulo.[25]

Discontent worsened. Bitter polemics were fought between Campos Sales, by Correio Paulistano, and Francisco Rangel Pestana, who used as a spokesman O Estado de S. Paulo. In this environment, on June 8, 1891, the Constituent Assembly was installed and, in July, Américo Brasiliense, already chosen president of the state, promulgated the first constitution in São Paulo. [25]

The spirits seemed to calm when Deodoro da Fonseca's blow brought the excitement back to life. The capital and the countryside lived in apprehension, under the threat of subversion of public order, which was spreading throughout the country. To avoid the civil war, Deodoro resigned, and the vice president, Floriano Peixoto, took over the presidency of the republic, who then received political and financial support from São Paulo against the uprisings that were spreading across the nation. In return, São Paulo assumed the hegemony of the federation, with the election of Prudente de Morais, in 1894, which started the series of civilian presidents.[25]

Meanwhile, in the state, Américo Brasiliense handed over the government to Major Sérgio Tertuliano Castelo Branco, who soon passed it on to whoever was entitled: the vice president, José Alves de Cerqueira César. This, in the face of the spirit of riot and monarchical reaction that reigned, dissolved the Legislative Assembly, immediately called another Congress and deposed all the city councils of the state. Elections were held for deputies and senators for the second state legislature, which took place on April 7, 1892. Always showing determination and firmness, Cerqueira César called on the electorate to choose a new president of the state, Bernardino de Campos, the first São Paulo governor elected by direct suffrage.[25]

After 1904, the mandates of the presidents of the state of São Paulo stabilized, every 4 years. Jorge Tibiriçá Piratininga reformed the police in São Paulo. In 1910, in a failed campaign, the paulistas supported the candidacy of Rui Barbosa to the presidency of the republic, with the president of São Paulo Albuquerque Lins as their vice. Defeated Rui Barbosa and assuming the presidency Hermes da Fonseca, São Paulo took the risk of federal intervention in Salvations Policy, however, with the election of the Counselor Rodrigues Alves, president of São Paulo from 1912 to 1916, thanks to his prestige throughout Brazil, São Paulo escaped federal intervention.

The president of São Paulo from 1916 to 1920, Dr. Altino Arantes Marques faced the Five Greats: the Great War, the great frost of 1918, the strikes of 1917, the Spanish flu and the invasion of locusts in the interior of São Paulo.[26]

Dr. Washington Luís, who governed São Paulo from 1920 to 1924, revolutionized São Paulo with his motto " Governing is opening roads ", and currently, 19 of the 20 best Brazilian highways are from São Paulo.[25]

In 1924, during the Carlos de Campos presidency, the 1924 Revolution takes place in São Paulo, which forces Carlos de Campos to withdraw from the capital. Destruction and depredation and bombing happen on the part of the federal government. The rebels are defeated and headed for the interior of Brazil.[25]

Dr. Washington Luís came to the presidency of the republic in 1926, however he was deposed on October 24, 1930.[27]

On March 1, 1930, the president of São Paulo, the paulista Júlio Prestes, was elected president of the republic, obtaining 91% of the valid votes in São Paulo, but did not take office, prevented by Brazilian Revolution of 1930, which also overthrew the presidency of the republic Washington Luís that was president of São Paulo between 1920 and 1924.[28] São Paulo then it started to be governed by the winners of the Revolution of 1930 and soon after it revolted against this situation leading the Revolution of 1932. Júlio Prestes and Washington Luís were exiled. The PRP's supporting newspapers were destroyed.[28][29]

Poster MMDC calling the people of São Paulo to arms.

The 1930s in São Paulo were characterized, from an economic point of view, by efforts to adjust to the new conditions created by the world crisis of 1929 and by the collapse of the price of coffee. From a political point of view, the period was marked by the struggle for the recovery of São Paulo's hegemony in the federation, reached by Aliança Liberal and finally annihilated by the revolution of 1930.[29] This submitted the state to the action of federal interventionists, who, at first, were not even from São Paulo.[29]

The demands in favor of a São Paulo government soon appeared, which, in the version of the winners of the Brazilian Revolution of 1930, was seen as an attempt to restore the hegemonic groups in São Paulo, whose interests, both economic and political, were being harmed by the new situation.[29] However, even some stakeholders, such as the Pernambuco lieutenant João Alberto Lins de Barros, sought to reconcile coffee growing with the new federal government guidance.[29]

Accustomed to leading their own destiny, the ruling classes rose up under the leadership of the Democratic Party, then chaired by Professor Francisco Morato, precisely the party allied with Getulist revolution of 1930.[30] The political organization broke, however, with the federal government and constituted, with the classes conservative and the old PRP, the Frente Única Paulista. The latter sought alliance with other states, particularly with the opposition gaúcha, but in the end the paulistas rebelled,[30] relying only on the support of troops from the State de Maracaju (current Mato Grosso do Sul).[31]

On July 9, 1932, the constitutional revolution of São Paulo broke out. Pedro de Toledo, from São Paulo, soon proclaimed governor, governed the state. Battalions of volunteers were formed, and some units of the Army, a strong contingent from Mato Grosso and almost all of the state public force joined the movement. Fifty thousand men were initially mobilized, whose command fell to General Bertolo Klingler, and later to Colonel Euclides de Oliveira Figueiredo.[31]

Industry participated in the revolution with enthusiasm. Under the direction of Roberto Cochrane Simonsen, the entire industrial park in São Paulo was placed at the service of the rebellion, dedicated to war production. Internal supply was also organized. The fight lasted, however, only three months and ended with the defeat of the paulistas and the loss of hundreds of lives.[31]

A few months after the capitulation, the federal government, in order to pacify the country, decided to call elections for the Constituent Assembly, responding to the main objective of the revolutionaries in São Paulo: the restoration of constitutional order. Meanwhile, São Paulo was militarily occupied from October 1932 to August 1933. Former governor Pedro de Toledo, his secretariat and other politicians who took an active part in the revolution were exiled.[31]

São Paulo, for a long time city was the main industrial center of the state.

After World War I, coffee cultivation began to face crises of oversupply and competition from other countries. The cultivation begins to be controlled by the government, in order to avoid crises and farms close, taking immigrants towards São Paulo, where they become workers.[29]

Political pressures demanding an end to the predominance of the São Paulo coffee elite arise and artistic movements such as Week of 1922 propagate new social and economic ideas. External immigration begins to weaken and strikes anarchists and communists break out in São Paulo as industrial empires such as that of the Matarazzo family are formed.[32]

In 1930 coffee entered its last crisis with the Crisis of 1929 and the crash of the New York Stock Exchange the previous year, the collapse of external grain prices and the Brazilian Revolution of 1930, which removes Paulistas from power.[29]

Satellite image focusing on Metropolitan Region of São Paulo.

Two years later, in 1932, São Paulo fights Getúlio Vargas in Constitutionalist revolution, in an attempt to retake the lost power, but is defeated militarily. The coffee crisis worsens and the rural exodus towards the city of São Paulo empties the interior of the state.[29]

During the period of Estado Novo with Ademar de Barros as governor of the state and Prestes Maia mayor of the city of São Paulo, the state enters a new phase of development with the construction of major highways and hydroelectric plants.[33]

The World War II interrupts the imports of products and the São Paulo industry starts a process of import substitution, starting to produce in the state the products until then imported. The process intensifies under the Juscelino Kubitschek government, which lays the foundations of automotive industry in ABC paulista.[15]

To supply the necessary manpower, the state now receives millions of northeasterners, coming mainly from the states of Bahia, Ceará, Pernambuco and Paraíba, who replace the former immigrants, now composing the São Paulo middle class, as workers.[34] These are mainly located on the outskirts of São Paulo and in neighboring cities.[34][35] This rapid population increase promotes a process of metropolization, where São Paulo agglomerates with neighboring cities, forming the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo.[34][35]

In 1960, city of São Paulo became the largest Brazilian city and main economic center in the country, surpassing Rio de Janeiro. This title of largest Brazilian city is due to a greater number of migrants who chose to go to São Paulo.

In this period, São Paulo's policy was dominated by the rivalry between "Janismo" and "Ademarismo", being the two greatest political leaders in São Paulo, Ademar de Barros and Jânio Quadros.

Rodovia dos Bandeirantes, one of the main vectors of development of interior of the state.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the state government promotes several works that encourage the economy of the interior of the state, emptied since the coffee crash in 1930.[36]

The opening and duplication of Via Dutra (BR-116) recovers and industrializes Vale do Paraíba, which is concentrated around the aviation industry of São José dos Campos.[36] To the West, the implantation of Viracopos International Airport, the creation of State University of Campinas (Unicamp) the opening of highways such as Rodovia Anhanguera and Bandeirantes and Rodovia Washington Luís the implementation of modern production techniques, especially sugarcane and of its by-product, fuel alcohol, again bring progress to the regions of Campinas, Sorocaba, Central, Ribeirão Preto and Franca.[37]

Campinas, the largest city in the state's interior

This process of economic recovery in the interior intensified from the 1980s, when countless urban problems, such as violence, pollution and disorderly occupation, afflicted the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. Between 1980 and 2000 the vast majority of investments made in the state were made outside the capital, which changes from an industrial metropolis to a center of services and finance. The interior, especially the axes between Campinas - Piracicaba - São Carlos - Ribeirão Preto - Franca and Sorocaba - São José dos Campos - Taubaté, becomes industrialized and prosperous.[38]

However, even with the enrichment and industrialization of the interior, other states have an even higher rate of economic growth than São Paulo, mainly the South and Center-West regions.

Currently, although growth is not as high and there is competition from other states, São Paulo is the main economic and industrial hub of South America, being the largest consumer market in Brazil.

• State of São Paulo
• City of São Paulo
• List of people from São Paulo
• History of the City of São Paulo

• Full edition of the book History of the Captaincy of São Vicente Pedro Taques de Almeida Paes Leme (in PDF format)
• Memories for the history of the captaincy of S. Vicente, author Frei Gaspar da Madre de Deus