Itu

Itu's colonial settlement developed around a chapel of Nossa Senhora da Candelária built in 1610 by Domingos Fernandes and Cristóvão Diniz. Their land grant in the Pirapitingui fields dated from 1604. These events concern the formation of the colonial town, not the beginning of human occupation in the region.

The settlement became a parish in 1653 and a vila with a municipal council in 1657. The municipality's history describes it as a small nucleus of fewer than one hundred houses until about 1750, gathered around the main churchyard and a single connecting street. Farm owners supported the Franciscan and Carmelite convents as plantation production and slavery expanded. Merchants built Santa Rita's chapel in 1726, opening it in 1728. By 1760 the town had about 105 houses and another street, while serving trade between southern Brazil and the mining regions of Mato Grosso and Goiás.