Alagoas

Alagoas (English: , AL-ə-GOH-əs ; Brazilian Portuguese: [alaˈɡoɐs] ) is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil and is situated in the eastern part of the Northeast Region. It borders Pernambuco to the north, Sergipe to the south, Bahia to the southwest, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Its capital city is Maceió. It is made up of 102 municipalities and its most populous cities are Maceió, Arapiraca, Palmeira dos Índios, Rio Largo, Penedo, União dos Palmares, São Miguel dos Campos, Santana do Ipanema, Delmiro Gouveia, Coruripe, and Campo Alegre. It is the second smallest Brazilian state in area (larger only than Sergipe) and it is 16th in population. It has 1.6% of the Brazilian population and produces 0.8% of the Brazilian GDP. Alagoas is one of the largest producers of sugarcane, coconuts, and natural gas in the country, and has ongoing oil exploration mostly consisting of onshore deposits. Initially, the territory of Alagoas constituted the southern part of the Captaincy of Pernambuco and only gained its autonomy in 1817. Its occupation pushed the expansion of the captaincy's sugarcane farming, which required new areas of cultivation, southward. Thus arose Porto Calvo, Alagoas (now Marechal Deodoro) and Penedo, nuclei which guided the colonization, economic, and social life of the region for a long time. The Dutch invasion in Pernambuco was extended to Alagoas in 1631. The invaders were expelled in 1645, after intense fighting in Porto Calvo, leaving the economy in ruins. The escape of African slaves during the Dutch invasion created a serious labour shortage problem on the sugarcane plantations. Grouped in villages called quilombos, the Africans were only completely dominated at the end of the 17th century with the destruction of the most important quilombo, Palmares. During the empire, the separatist and republican Confederation of the Equator...