Belem, Brazil
Tourism

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town was founded as a river port on January 12th 1616, soon after the expulsion of the French from São Luís. It was designed to prevent, or at any rate to make more difficult, any settlement by foreigners in the north of Portuguese America. In course of time Belém developed into a center of trade in the produce of the sertão, such as cinnamon, rubber and irucum, a red dyestuff obtained from the fruit of the annatto tree (Bixa orellana). In 1751 Belém became capital of the state of Maranhão and Grão-Pará, which took in the whole of northern Brazil. The rubber boom left the town a legacy of much colonial-style architecture, ranging from the colonial Baroque of the Italian architect Antonio Giuseppe Landi by way of Rococo to neo-classicism.