Congonhas

Congonhas
Municipality
Municipality of Congonhas
View of the Church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição within the city
Flag Seal
Nickname:  Cidade dos Profetas ("City of the Prophets")
Location in Minas Gerais
Coordinates: 20°30′00″S 43°51′28″W / 20.50000°S 43.85778°W / -20.50000; -43.85778
Country	Brazil
Region	Southeast
State	Minas Gerais
Emancipated	17 December 1938
Districts	Alto Maranhão, Congonhas and Lobo Leite
Government
• Type	Mayor-council
• Mayor	Anderson Cabido (PSB, 2025–2028)
Area
• Municipality	304.067 km2 (117.401 sq mi)
• Urban	22.77 km2 (8.79 sq mi)
Elevation	1,023 m (3,356 ft)
Population  (2022 census)
• Municipality	52,890
• Density	173.9/km2 (450/sq mi)
Demonym	congonhense
Time zone	UTC−3 (BRT)
HDI (2010)	0.753 – high
GDP (2021)	R$ 4,115,643.68 thousand
GDP per capita (2021)	R$ 73,709.50
Website	www.congonhas.mg.gov.br

Congonhas is a Brazilian municipality in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais, in the Southeast Region of the country. It is located in the central part of the state and covers an area of about 300 km² (120 sq mi), of which 22.8 km² (8.8 sq mi) is urban area. Its population was 52,890 inhabitants in the 2022 census.^[1]

The name "Congonhas" comes from congonha, a shrub once abundant in the region.^[2][a] Tea made from varieties of this plant has been part of regional culture since the period of Indigenous occupation.^[3] According to the Dicionário de Tupi Antigo, the name of the shrub comes from the southern língua geral, under Guarani influence.^[4] The form congõi is also recorded in the Tesoro de la Lengua Guaraní, a dictionary of Old Guarani, from which the word entered the língua geral.^[5]

The first recorded contacts between bandeirantes and the Indigenous Carijós peoples in the area date to 1691, in a place known as Passagem do Gagé, between Congonhas and Conselheiro Lafaiete.^[6] One of the expeditions followed the basin toward the Doce River, and in the region of Itaverava the first gold declaration in Minas Gerais was made.

Other expeditions moved northward, toward the Rio das Velhas basin. Using the Serra do Deus te Livre, or Serra do Ouro Branco, as a reference point, they skirted the range and found significant gold deposits in the region of the Ribeirão do Carmo. This led to the emergence of Mariana, the first town in Minas Gerais, in 1696, along with dozens of mining settlements along the route. Other expeditions followed the basin of the Paraopeba River.

After passing through the area of present-day Passagem do Gagé, and descending the Soledade, Macaquinhos and Maranhão rivers, the first reports of gold finds in Congonhas do Campo appeared at the end of the seventeenth century.^[7] These routes, opened during the search for gold, formed the main gold road until the early decades of the eighteenth century, linking the region of Vila Rica to Paraty. It became known as the Caminho Velho of the Estrada Real.^[8]

Between 1707 and 1709, the struggle for gold led to the War of the Emboabas, which involved clashes and persecutions among settlers from São Paulo, outsiders from other regions known as emboabas, and Indigenous groups. One of the landmarks associated with the conflict is the ruin of the Cadeia, or jail, which was used to hold people detained during the fighting. It still stands in the present-day district of Alto Maranhão.

In 1718, a sesmaria was granted for the creation of the settlement of Redondo, now Alto Maranhão. The settlement was associated with the Portuguese brothers José and João da Silva Redondo, pioneering families who established roots in the district through devotion to Nossa Senhora da Ajuda.

In 1734, construction began on the second hermitage of the mother church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, officially creating the settlement of Congonhas do Campo, then belonging to Vila Rica. The open span of the church's nave is considered one of the largest in the country. Its soapstone portal is attributed to Aleijadinho, during his first period of work in Congonhas. The interior, with features of the baroque and rococo, includes work attributed to the Portuguese artist Francisco Vieira Servas.

By that time, chapels already existed in the surrounding area, including Nossa Senhora da Ajuda in the settlement of Redondo,^[9] Santa Quitéria, with a date of 1717 carved into it, and Nossa Senhora da Soledade in Lobo Leite.^[10]

Cônego Luís Vieira da Silva was born in the region, in Lobo Leite, in 1735. He became a canon in the Archdiocese of Mariana and, because of his intellectual ability and book collection, is regarded as one of the principal thinkers of the Inconfidência Mineira. He died in 1805 as a political prisoner in a convent.^[11]

In 1750, the Portuguese landholder Manoel José Monteiro de Barros obtained possession of three sesmarias in the region of Congonhas do Campo and became the guarda-mor of mining activity in the area.^[7] Among his sons was Lucas Antônio Monteiro de Barros, born in 1767, who became the first Baron and Viscount of Congonhas. He worked in law and politics, serving as one of the early presidents of the Supreme Court of Justice and as the first governor of the province of São Paulo. The name of São Paulo–Congonhas Airport derives from this title. Another notable son was Romualdo José Monteiro de Barros, born in 1765, who, unlike Lucas, took over and expanded his father's mines after his death and became Baron of Paraopeba.^[7]

With the creation of Vila Real de Queluz, now Conselheiro Lafaiete, in 1790, it was decided that lands on the left bank of the Maranhão River would belong to the settlement of Redondo, and therefore to Queluz. Lands on the right bank belonged to Congonhas do Campo. This division caused tension between the two sides, because the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos stood on the left bank, meaning that it belonged neither to Congonhas nor to Vila Rica, but to Queluz. The dispute ended only with the emancipation of the municipality in 1938.

In 1812, the German geologist Baron Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege settled in Congonhas with the pioneering intention of producing iron in Brazil. His Fábrica Patriótica, on lands belonging to the Baron of Paraopeba, was organized in partnership with Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Varnhagen and Intendant Câmara. The site is now located near the present-day BR-040 highway, close to Mina da Fábrica, whose name refers to the former Fábrica Patriótica and which now belongs to Vale.

Von Eschwege wrote:

When I arrived in Minas in 1811, this barbarous process of iron production was common. Most blacksmiths and large farmers who had smithies also had their own small smelting furnaces, each one different from the next, because each owner built according to his own ideas.

(...) Itabira do Mato Dentro was the only place where there was a kind of closed low furnace, whose air was supplied by a large leather bellows driven by a water wheel, which also powered a sawmill. The owner had several blacksmith forges for smelting iron, and a small drilling machine for making gun barrels. I gave this man all the necessary instructions for installing a hydraulic hammer, something of which no one had any idea.

I even sent him, for some time, a German blacksmith, so that the man made great progress in iron production. He was the first, in April 1812, to draw out iron using a hydraulic hammer. This hammer was made of wood and encircled with iron hoops. From that time, four other people in the area imitated my installations at the Prata Iron Factory, near Congonhas do Campo, and before long there were 16 small furnaces working there, with several wrought-iron hammers powered by water.

Seeing Intendant Câmara's determination to produce iron in Brazil on an industrial scale, and the progress of existing projects, von Eschwege proposed building a foundry in Congonhas at much lower cost:

I shall say only that, until 1818, when the Swedish factory of São João do Ipanema was transformed by von Varnhagen into a German-style factory, my Congonhas works produced more iron than the one at Morro do Pilar and as much as the one at São João do Ipanema. Also, while the first two had cost 300,000 cruzados each, the construction costs of mine reached only 13,000. In addition, there was the great difference that mine had produced good profits for its owners, while the other two had produced only considerable losses.^[12]

Baron von Eschwege also became involved in some of Romualdo's gold operations, especially the Mina do Veeiro, near Parque da Cachoeira. There he began introducing mechanized extraction of gold-bearing sands. In 1814, the mine produced 540 oitavas of gold,^[7] one of the largest outputs after the height of the gold cycle.

Because of his credibility, Eschwege acquired the Mina da Passagem in Mariana, turning it into one of the largest gold mines in the world until the mid-twentieth century. It was also connected to the origins of the company Anglo Gold Mineração.

Silvério Gomes Pimenta was born in Congonhas in 1840. He later became Brazil's first Black bishop, serving in the Archdiocese of Mariana. He was one of those responsible for introducing the railway to Congonhas at the end of the nineteenth century. Through the diocese, he sponsored a branch line connecting the Estrada de Ferro Central do Brasil to the center of the settlement, greatly increasing the number of pilgrims visiting the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos. Dom Silvério was elected a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1919.

On 17 December 1938, the district of Congonhas do Campo was elevated to the category of municipality, being separated from the municipalities of Conselheiro Lafaiete and Ouro Preto. On 27 December 1948, by State Law No. 336, the municipality of Congonhas do Campo was renamed Congonhas.^[13]

The Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos originated in a vow made by Feliciano Mendes, a Portuguese miner who had come to Minas Gerais in search of gold and attributed his recovery from a serious illness to Bom Jesus de Matosinhos.^[14] The devotion was associated with northern Portugal, especially the sanctuaries of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos, near Porto, and Bom Jesus de Braga, near Braga.^[15] Construction began in 1757, after royal and ecclesiastical approval, and was initially funded by alms collected by Mendes along the roads of Minas Gerais.^[16]

The first phase of construction involved the master mason Antônio Rodrigues Falcato, the mason Domingos Antônio Dantas, and the carpenters Antônio Gonçalves Rosa and Francisco Gonçalves Martins.^[16] By the time Mendes died in 1765, the church was already usable for worship, with three altars installed and the image of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos, imported from Portugal, placed prominently on the high altar.^[16] Between 1769 and 1773, Francisco de Lima Cerqueira worked at Congonhas, where his main task was the construction of the church's chancel, carried out with Tomás da Maia Brito.^[15]

The sanctuary complex consists of the church, a walled forecourt, a monumental exterior stairway, twelve soapstone statues of prophets, and six chapels known as the Passos, which illustrate the Way of the Cross.^[15] The church interior belongs to the rococo phase of religious art in Minas Gerais and includes work by artists such as Francisco Vieira Servas, Bernardo Pires da Silva, João Nepomuceno Correia e Castro and Manuel Rodrigues Coelho.^[15] From 1796 to 1799, Antônio Francisco Lisboa, known as Aleijadinho, and assistants from his workshop carved the wooden sculptural groups for the Passion chapels.^[15] The groups represent the Last Supper, the Agony in the Garden, the Arrest, the Flagellation and Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, and the Crucifixion.^[14]

Between 1800 and 1805, Aleijadinho and his assistants carved the twelve near-life-size soapstone prophets for the sanctuary's forecourt.^[15] The prophet statues stand on the stairway and forecourt and are among the best-known works of the sanctuary's sculptural program.^[17] The sanctuary became a center of pilgrimage in the eighteenth century, and the devotional practices associated with it produced a large collection of ex-votos, later housed in the Room of Miracles.^[17]

The Jubilee of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos was officially instituted by Pope Pius VI in 1779, and the first official Jubilee was held in 1780.^[18]

The sanctuary was listed by IPHAN in 1939, and the broader architectural and urban ensemble of Congonhas was listed in 1941.^[17] The Nossa Senhora da Conceição mother church was listed in 1950, and the sanctuary's collection of 89 ex-votos was listed in 1981.^[14] The protected urban ensemble includes religious architecture and civil buildings from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially in the historic area around the sanctuary.^[14]

The sanctuary was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site on 6 December 1985.^[14][19] Restoration work took place in 1946, 1949 and 1957; in 1974, work at the sanctuary included landscaping by Roberto Burle Marx, and the prophet statues were restored between 1985 and 1988.^[17] In 2004, the basilica was chosen as the "Image of Minas" in a contest organized by TV Globo Minas.^[20]

The Museu de Congonhas opened in December 2015 beside the sanctuary, in a building of 3,452.30 m² (37,160.2 sq ft) designed by Gustavo Penna, whose project won a national competition.^[21] The museum was created as a site museum to interpret the sanctuary's religious, artistic and historical dimensions, and includes exhibition rooms, a library, an auditorium, an educational space, a café, an outdoor amphitheater and administrative areas.^[21]

Congonhas is located at latitude 20°29′59″ south and longitude 43°51′28″ west, among mountain ranges, at an average altitude of 1,023 m (3,356 ft).^[22] The city is 70 km (43 mi) from Belo Horizonte and is divided into three districts: Congonhas, the seat district; Alto Maranhão; and Lobo Leite.^[2]

The soil is rich in high-grade iron ore, especially hematite. In the past, gold mining was also significant, and gold is still found in the area, although not on an industrial scale. Gold extraction took place in the region of the Paraopeba River and its tributaries, including the Varginha, Ouro Branco, Soledade, Gagé and Maranhão rivers.^[2]

Under the 2017 geographic classification of the IBGE, Congonhas is part of the Immediate Geographic Region of Conselheiro Lafaiete, within the Intermediate Geographic Region of Barbacena.^[23]

Congonhas's economy is strongly linked to iron ore mining. After the decline of gold mining, the expansion of iron ore extraction in the second half of the twentieth century renewed the local economy and made the municipality one of the important tax-revenue centers in Minas Gerais.^[24]

Major mining operations in the municipality include the Casa de Pedra mine, operated by CSN Mineração, a subsidiary of Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional.^[25] Casa de Pedra is located in Congonhas and is one of the largest open-pit iron ore mines in Brazil.^[25] Vale S.A. also operates the Fábrica and Viga mines in Congonhas, both part of its Paraopeba Complex.^[26] Ore produced in these operations is transported by rail to ports and industrial users in Minas Gerais, Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro.^[25][26]

The municipality is also associated with cultural and religious tourism because of the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos, a World Heritage Site and pilgrimage destination. The sanctuary, its chapels, the statues of the prophets by Aleijadinho, the Museu de Congonhas and the historic urban area form the main basis of the city's heritage tourism.^[27]

• Sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos
• Twelve Prophets of Aleijadinho
• List of municipalities in Minas Gerais
• List of municipalities in Brazil

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Congonhas (Minas Gerais).

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Congonhas.

• Congonhas municipal government
• Congonhas City Council
• Congonhas at IBGE Cidades
• Sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Congonhas UNESCO World Heritage profile