Brazil

The Basque mark on the history of Brazil fits into three names: that of a Jesuit whom São Paulo regards as its founder, that of a president with a Basque mother and that of a city that devoted a day to its Basques.

José de Anchieta, the Jesuit at the origin of São Paulo

José de Anchieta was born in La Laguna (Tenerife). His father, Juan de Anchieta, was from Urrestilla, in Gipuzkoa, and a cousin of Saint Ignatius of Loyola. The son studied in Coimbra, entered the Society of Jesus in 1551 and two years later was sent to Brazil.⁴

There he founded a college in Piratininga, in the mission known as San Pablo, which is today the city of São Paulo and recognises him as its founder. He was a physician, poet and linguist: he wrote a grammar and a dictionary of the Tupi language with which the Jesuits learned the língua geral. He rose to be provincial of the Jesuits of Brazil, died in 1597 in Reritiba and was beatified in 1980.⁴

A president with a Basque mother

General Emílio Garrastazu Médici, president of Brazil between 1969 and 1974, was born in Bagé (Rio Grande do Sul) in 1905. His father was a merchant and landowner of Italian roots; his mother, Júlia Garrastazu, came from cattle-ranching families of Basque origin, and his maternal grandfather, Anselmo Garrastazu, was a “maragato”, as the gaúcho federalists were called. It was his mother’s influence that took him to the Colégio Militar de Porto Alegre.¹¹⁰

The Día de los Vascos de Itapevi

The Basque house of Itapevi took only a few years to become part of the social and cultural life of the city, and the town council ended up establishing a Dia dos Bascos by municipal law. Its first official edition was held in July 2011 in the council chamber.⁹