Caico

Caicó lies beside the Seridó River in the dry interior of northeastern Brazil. Its landscape of seasonal watercourses and thorny vegetation was home to Indigenous peoples before Portuguese settlers advanced into the region with their cattle. The river gave its name to the wider Seridó country, whose inhabitants depended on its waters in a climate of irregular rain.

During the late seventeenth century the expansion of ranching brought violent conflict with Indigenous communities. A fortified house known as the Casa Forte do Cuó was built near the river in the 1680s as a base for colonial forces. Settlement grew around it, and by 1735 the place was recognised as the povoação of Caicó. Its early history was shaped by the contest for land and water in the sertão.