Thedefenseofthecityandthecreationoffortificationclasses

In the mid-17th century, Rio de Janeiro still could not be considered a city free from attacks by enemy colonizing nations. So much so that, in 1646, the then governor Duarte Corrêa Vasqueanes wrote to the King of Portugal to stress the importance of moving the administrative institutions back to the upper part of the city, as well as building walls for the greater safety of its residents. But Rio de Janeiro's maritime vocation meant that the project did not go forward, and only the churches and fortresses remained on the hills, in order to protect the city against the “enemies of the king and of the faith.” Around 1649, the French military engineer Miguel Lescolle arrived from Portugal, with the mission of resolving the defense issues – a recurring concern in the early centuries of colonization.

In the reports prepared by Lescolle, the need was pointed out to fortify the Castelo, São Bento, Santo Antônio, and Conceição hills and to entrench a large part of the seafront. They were sent to the Overseas Council, which gave a favorable opinion of the engineer's intentions, but it is not known whether the projects were carried out as planned. The reports were transcribed by Gilberto Ferrez in 1972, but the seven city plans produced by Lescolle, unfortunately, were not found in Brazilian or Portuguese archives. It was the map by João Teixeira Albernaz, drawn up in an atlas produced in 1666, that survived.

Image description: This is an old engraving depicting a map of Rio de Janeiro. The image is in black and white, with details in red and blue. From left to right, we see the coastline of Rio de Janeiro, marked by several islands and bays. On the left, there is the name "Lagoa de Itapagipe" and "Ilha do Tijoca". In the center, "Barra da Tijuca" stands out, with the "Porto de Guanabara" and "Ilha do Governador" to its right. On the right, we find "Ilha do Governador" and "Ilha da Cidade". The map is signed in the upper right corner with "APARENCIA DO RIO DE LANEIRO COTODOS OS BAIXOS E ILHAS".

From then on, several projects for the defense of Rio de Janeiro were presented by military engineers – the ones mainly responsible for most of the urban works of the colonial period. In January 1699, King Pedro II of Portugal ordered the creation of Aulas de Fortificação – training courses for soldiers to learn how to design and build fortifications.

In Rio, the Fortification Class was established as early as 1699, under the direction of the Portuguese military engineer Gregório Gomes Henriques. In 1738, the program was expanded with the Artillery Class, led by engineer José Fernandes Pinto Alpoim – an officer responsible for the construction of extremely important works in the city during the 18th century.

Image description: This is a black-and-white illustration of a man wearing an eighteenth-century military uniform. He is wearing a tricorn hat with a curved brim and two small dangling tassels. His head is tilted slightly forward, and he has short, neatly groomed hair. The uniform includes a high collar and a black sash crossed over his chest.

Although the idea of building a wall in the waterfront area had been raised since the mid-17th century, it was only carried out in 1713 – two years after the invasion by the corsair Duguay Trouin (1711) –, when the French engineer João Massé began the construction of a "simple wall around [the city]".

Image description: This is an old engraving depicting a map of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, with its fortifications. The image is in black and white, with details in red and green. On the left side, we see green areas and military structures, while the center features a city laid out in squares, symbolizing streets and houses. On the right, there are more green areas and fortifications. In the lower right corner, there is a key explaining the symbols used on the map.

But the wall, which limited the city to a small space, became a target of dissatisfaction already in the following decades, and it was never even completely finished. In the late 1720s, the Rio Senate requested the king's permission to build houses beyond the walls. The governor at the time, Luís Vahia Monteiro (1725 and 1732), despite considering Massé's wall useless, forbade the city from extending beyond it, arguing that the construction would become even more useless because of the "‘fábrica de novos edifícios[...]’. Estes só poderiam ser construídos caso se demolisse a muralha, o que levaria à ‘total condenação das fortificações’" (BICALHO, 2013, p. 13). Vahia Monteiro also proposed the construction of a canal that would serve as a moat, to protect the city.

Starting in the 1750s, Rio de Janeiro's growth toward the "sertões" completely eliminated the need to rebuild or improve the protective wall. The creation of new towns and settlements emerged as a better alternative for the occupation and protection of the city.

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BICALHO, Maria Fernanda. Rio de Janeiro in the 18th century: the transfer of the capital and the construction of the south-central territory of Portuguese America. URBANA: Electronic Journal of the Interdisciplinary Center for Urban Studies, Campinas, SP, v. 1, n. 1, p. 1–20, 2013.

CASTELLIANO, Luiz. A Brief History of the IME - Instituto Militar de Engenharia (Real Academia de Artilharia, Fortificação e Desenho, 1792). Instituto Militar de Engenharia: Rio de Janeiro, 2005.

CORRÊA-MARTINS, Francisco José. “Jeitinho carioca(?)”: the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro and its defensive system in three distinct moments of the colonial period. Sociedade Brasileira de Cartografia, Geodésia, Fotogrametria e Sensoriamento Remoto: Rio de Janeiro, 2013.