Jerubatuba

Jerubatuba was an Indigenous village in the country south of Piratininga, associated with the leader Caiubi, a brother of Tibiriçá. Its name survives in several forms, including Jeribatiba and Geribatiba. The village stood beside the river in the area that developed into Santo Amaro, on the southern side of the São Paulo plateau.

By 1556 the Jesuits maintained a house at Jeribatiba alongside their establishments at São Vicente and São Paulo. Missionary teaching and the conversion of Indigenous children and mixed-descent children connected the village to this wider colonial religious organisation. A chapel dedicated to Santo Amaro subsequently gave the settlement its enduring Portuguese name; João Paes and Suzana Rodrigues donated the saint's image. The settlement developed its own local institutions over the following centuries and became an independent municipality in 1833. Its colonial history began within an existing Indigenous settlement and its river landscape.