CONTACTS and collaborators @fazendaresgate @guia_junioroliveira @valehistoricoturismo We visited the Resgate Farm, located in the municipality of Bananal, state of São Paulo, and listed as a Historical Heritage Site. In 1776, the place called “o Resgate”, in the Province of São Paulo, almost on the border with the then Province of Rio de Janeiro, gave rise to what years later would become the Resgate Farm, in the current municipality of Bananal, in the Paraíba Valley of São Paulo. This place belonged to the Três Barras Farm, head of the land grant of Father Antônio Fernandes da Cruz. It became a farm in 1828, as a dowry for the marriage of Alda Rumana de Oliveira to Colonel Inácio Gabriel Monteiro de Barros. At that time, the property produced bacon, corn, beans, flour, and coffee in small quantities and had only 77 slaves. In 1833, the Resgate Farm was purchased by Mr. José de Aguiar Toledo, an Azorean (and therefore Portuguese) merchant who arrived in Brazil in the mid-18th century (around 1750). Toledo arrived in Bananal in the early 19th century, bringing with him from Minas Gerais the architectural solution implemented on the farm and his pioneering work in large-scale coffee planting in the region. In 1838, when José de Aguiar Toledo passed away, the Resgate Farm and its other properties were left as an inheritance to his eight children. Soon after, Manuel de Aguiar Valim, one of the eight brothers, bought his shares of the Resgate Farm from his brothers and established his residence on the property. In 1844, Commander Manuel de Aguiar Valim married Domiciana Maria de Almeida, daughter of Commander Luciano José de Almeida, owner of the Boa Vista Farm and possessor of one of the largest fortunes in the state. In the mid-1850s, at the height of coffee production in the province of São Paulo, Resgate already had over 400 slaves. Of these, 49 were destined to serve the master directly, namely: five housekeepers, 13 cooks, five pages, seven seamstresses, one tailor, two wet nurses, eight maids, one butler, one shoemaker, one barber, two washerwomen, one lacemaker, one saddler and one gardener. Now, the first floor of the house housed the maids' slave quarters, and in front of the house stood a huge complex of slave quarters for the other captives. Vallim kept a list of slaves recorded in a book. From 1858 onwards, the walls of the main house were decorated with paintings by José Maria Villaronga, a famous Spanish painter of the time. When he died in 1878, Commander Manuel de Aguiar Valim had one of the largest fortunes in Imperial Brazil and the largest coffee producer in the province of São Paulo. His estates included the Resgate, Três Barras, Independência, and Bocaina farms, as well as several other farms and locations. He had almost 400 slaves, as well as a mansion with “sixteen windows,” houses, and the Santa Cecília Theater with its accessories, in the city of Bananal. Valim owned a fortune equivalent to 1% of all paper money in circulation in Brazil, consisting of numerous government bonds (including those from the United States), gold, silver and diamonds. However, the most important legacy left by Comendador Manoel de Aguiar Vallim was the headquarters of the Resgate Farm. The house, built in the mid-18th century, has twenty rooms and is based on the Portuguese manor style (with only one floor) and adapted to the Minas Gerais coffee production solution of the first half of the 19th century (already with two floors, but without any refinement), gained a neoclassical façade with a central stone staircase. The building materials used in the renovation also differ from those used in its construction: the first floor is made of stone and wattle and daub and the second of adobe bricks. However, despite the neoclassical style façade, the back of the house is on the “ground floor”, in a “U” shaped plan with three attics: two on the sides and one facing the inner courtyard, characteristic of the Minas Gerais style. The renovation also includes the inner courtyard, which is given a new look. The dining room is placed next to it for ventilation and lighting purposes, as was customary in bourgeois residences in France, creating a new layout of the space. The paintings in the dining room used the trompe l'oeil technique, which “plays” with perspectives to create optical effects. This is a fundamental change in the parameters of housing in nineteenth-century Brazil. In this way, the Resgate Farm becomes a completely preserved monument/document of Brazilian history. #google #google #oldhouse #nature #lnr #share @marciliowillianfarms#farms #farms #placesinourregion #youtube #slavequarters #gold