Jacui

The Jacuí country here belongs to Rio Grande do Sul, where the river joined the southern Brazilian grasslands to the waterways leading towards Porto Alegre. It should be distinguished from the town of Jacuí in Minas Gerais. One documented point in this river landscape was Rio Pardo, near the junction of the Pardo and Jacuí rivers.

After Portugal and Spain signed the Treaty of Madrid in 1750, Portuguese soldiers established a frontier commission beside the Jacuí. A fort called Jesus-Maria-José became the nucleus of a settlement of soldiers' families, livestock drovers, merchants and Azorean settlers. The river port received goods from Porto Alegre for distribution towards the missions, the pampa and the uplands. In 1809 Rio Pardo became one of the four municipalities into which the captaincy was divided. These events describe a particular river junction and its hinterland, not the foundation of every settlement throughout the Jacuí basin.