According to the text approved in congress, immigrants would have first arrived in Brazil in Espirito Santo
A law sanctioned last Friday (12) by President Michel Temer (PMDB) removed Santa Catarina's status as the birthplace of Italian colonization in Brazil. Law 13.617/2018 recognizes the city of Santa Teresa, in Espírito Santo, as a “Pioneer of Italian Immigration in Brazil”. The municipality is said to have received the first immigrants in 1875. Santa Catarina, however, received the first Italians 39 years earlier. They founded Colônia Nova Itália, today the municipality of São João Batista, in the Greater Florianópolis region.
Community leaders, the Association of Descendants and Friends of the Pioneer Center of Italian Immigration in Brazil, and the city of São João Batista are already mobilized to first approve a state law on the subject and then oppose the legislation approved by the National Congress and sanctioned by the president. “We are already negotiating with state representatives. We can prove that the first immigrants arrived in Santa Catarina,” says the organization’s director, Élio Paulo Satori. “I am even more at ease, because our immigration dates back much earlier and we can prove it. Colônia Nova Itália is the cradle of immigration in Brazil,” adds Plácido Vargas, secretary of administration and economic development of São João Batista.
Paulo Kons in the Nova Itália cemetery and the tomb of one of the colonizers who died in 1919 – Disclosure/ND
Historian Paulo Vendelino Kons, responsible for the recent organization of the 180th anniversary celebration of Italian Immigration in Brazil, in Colônia Nova Itália, treats the issue as a historical error by the federal government and the National Congress. “We must send a manifesto to Congress so that this error can be corrected. I believe that, demonstrating that there is older colonization, such as that of Colônia Nova Itália, the Law can be revoked or replaced”, he pondered.
The leaders of Santa Catarina and the descendants of the first Italians in the State also assess that the vote and promulgation of the law took place without due historical survey. It was presented in Congress and voted on without anyone checking facts prior to the proposal.
In 1836, with a wave of Italian immigrants, Colônia Nova Itália was founded.
Expedition to Espirito Santo was commanded by Austrians
Paulo Vendelino Kons also criticizes the fact that the colonization of Santa Teresa was associated with the arrival of the ship La Shofia, which was headed by an Austrian, although it brought Italians. He recalls that the arrival in Santa Catarina took place in 1836, with 132 Catholic immigrants from the Kingdom of Sardinia, the precursor of Italy. They disembarked in March of that year in the north bay of Florianópolis, aboard the ship Correio.
The fact that Italy did not exist in 1836, however, is one of the reasons why Santa Teresa's defenders seek recognition for the city, which is not accepted by the people of Santa Teresa. Another argument deals with “mass immigration”, which would not have happened before 1875, according to them.
The municipality of Santa Teresa is the largest grape and wine producer in Espírito Santo, representing 80% of state production. It was founded on June 26, 1875, by a group of 150 immigrants from Northern Italy.
By MARCOS HOROSTECKI/NEWS OF THE DAY
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