Îakare'y

Jacareí grew beside the Paraíba do Sul in southeastern Brazil, along routes linking the coast with inland settlements. Local histories associate its beginnings with Antonio Afonso and his three sons, who settled there in 1652 under the name Nossa Senhora da Conceição da Paraíba. It became a vila in 1653, and the creation document was drawn up in November of that year.

The river and the roads toward Minas Gerais made the settlement a stopping place for muleteers and travellers. Religious buildings marked its developing centre, including the Avarei chapel dated to 1728. From around 1790 the spread of coffee cultivation in the Paraíba valley brought a new source of commercial growth, and by the early nineteenth century Jacareí was an established river-valley town shaped by local farming, inland traffic and the emerging coffee economy.

The later city of São José dos Campos lies here.