Kurí tyba

Curitiba stands on a plateau west of the Serra do Mar, among rivers, grasslands and forests of araucaria. The upland setting separates it from the Atlantic coast while opening routes into the interior of southern Brazil. Its Indigenous name is associated with the pine-covered landscape that surrounded the early settlement.

Gold seekers from São Paulo and São Vicente crossed the coastal mountains during the seventeenth century and established settlements on the plateau. In 1693 the residents elected a council and Curitiba became a vila, giving the community its own municipal government. As mining lost importance, the passage of drovers and their cattle and mules became a growing source of trade. The route connected the southern grasslands with São Paulo and the markets of the mining regions farther north. Drovers stopped to rest and exchange goods, making the town an intermediary between distant livestock producers and buyers.

The town remained a modest centre for the surrounding farms and routes during the colonial period. Its population included Indigenous people, Portuguese settlers and people of mixed ancestry, as well as enslaved Africans and Indigenous captives. Early prospectors also maintained plots of manioc, maize and beans for their own subsistence. Churches, a council and markets gave form to the settlement on a plateau that had long been inhabited before the arrival of the miners.