Baependi Forest

Baependi occupies a broken upland of forested hills in southern Minas Gerais. Rivers descend through deep valleys toward the Grande basin, and waterfalls mark the faults between ridges. To travellers crossing the Mantiqueira range, the place appeared as a clearing sheltered by high country rather than open plain.

The name comes from Tupi, perhaps meaning the water of a flattened place or an open glade. Paulistas from Taubaté entered the area around 1692 in search of gold and Indigenous captives. By the early eighteenth century a settlement had formed near the Baependi River, around a chapel and the estate of Tomé Rodrigues Nogueira do Ó.

The Estrada Real connected the mining districts with Paraty on the Atlantic, giving land travel a regular commercial purpose. Gold, supplies and later agricultural produce passed over the mountain routes. Around the new parish church, founded in the 1750s, the settlement gained a permanent centre.

Mining declined as gold gave out, and cattle, farming and tobacco replaced it. Baependi became a parish in 1752 and a town in 1814. Slopes, forest and water continued to set the shape of the road and settlement.