Itajaí

Itajaí lies at the mouth of the Itajaí-Açu, where the river valley opens onto the Atlantic coast. Long before colonial settlement, Indigenous communities inhabited the wider valley; Laklãnõ-Xokleng territorial memory and archaeological evidence point to a long history of occupation there.

Local accounts associate the arrival of the Paulista João Dias de Arzão with the river in 1658. In the eighteenth century Portuguese settlers, including families from the Azores, moved into the coastal region. Their settlements grew along waterways already important to the peoples of the valley.