Rio Pomba

Rio Pomba grew in the wooded eastern backlands of Minas Gerais, on a river that drains toward the Paraíba do Sul. In 1767 Father Manoel de Jesus Maria began missionary work among the Indigenous peoples of the region, and the parish of Rio Pomba was established. The concentration of Indigenous communities in colonial settlements helped open the surrounding country to incoming farmers, profoundly altering the lives of its earlier inhabitants.