Each community that makes up the municipality of Alfredo Wagner had a pioneer who planted a hoe in the soil and said: this is it! These pioneers deserve to have their history rescued and published for the knowledge of new generations.
The foundation of the Military Colony of Santa Thereza, today Catuíra , is entirely linked to the Empire of Brazil in a decree signed by Emperor Dom Pedro II. Other communities emerged after the establishment of the troops and the progress of the colony.
Hatred for everything that represented the Empire caused Floriano Peixoto to unleash his anger on the flourishing state of Santa Catarina (Princess Isabel had properties here, including a coal mine in production in the municipality of Orleans). Meanwhile, he ordered the assassination of politicians and the monarchist elite of Santa Catarina, forcing the search for new routes to avoid the flourishing Santa Thereza Military Colony created by imperial decree. The route he found changed the history of our municipality.
Let’s go back to the Shed…
This name is common in Santa Catarina to designate stops where knights and troops would rest between one day and another, traveling along difficult-to-access roads. A quick search of old newspapers showed more than 100 mentions , with emphasis on the Barracão de Gaspar (the most mentioned), Brusque, Orleans, etc. Our Barracão was found only 3 times and all the mentions are from the Catholic newspaper of Florianópolis “O Apóstolo”.
There was a certain rivalry between other communities and the people of Barracão. I obtained this information from conversations with locals on several occasions. Always party-loving and ready to joke around (among them calling people by nicknames…), the residents of Barracão made their living mostly from commerce. The opening of a new route on the road connecting Florianópolis to Lages, the new bridge built over the Caeté River by Eng. Emílio Kuntze and the road cutting through Barracão, following through Sombrio towards Águas Frias, Lomba Alta , Bom Retiro, etc., meant that the place became the center of attention.
The residents of Barracão, always very skillful, political and sagacious, took the resistance of other communities as a joke and little by little did what, perhaps, few expected: the emancipation of the Municipality.
Barracão remained and after being a district for three years, it became the headquarters of the beautiful and charming municipality of Alfredo Wagner, the Capital of Santa Catarina’s Springs. Barracão changed its name because another city already had this name.
But then, who founded Barracão?
Some attempts to settle at the mouth of the Caeté and Adaga Rivers were hampered by periodic flooding. Meanwhile, someone found a drier spot and settled there. According to the Catholic newspaper of Florianópolis, “O Apóstolo” from 1956, the name of this pioneer was Sebastião Antônio Pereira.
Sebastião António Pereira, or Bastião da Gracinda, as he was better known ( Gracinda was his mother’s name), born in 1878 in the Military Colony of Santa Thereza, married Izaurinha da Cunha Pereira in 1902 and their children Felisbino, Santolina , Rodolfo and Guilhermina, gave them (at the time of the article published in the aforementioned newspaper) 14 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren.
He acquired land in Barracão and there he began to work as a shoemaker, clearing the wild forests that were around. In 1913 he became a courier ( postman ) taking the mail from Barracão to Rio do Sul and from Barracão to Santo Amaro.
His relationship with the Indians was one of the best . During the entire period in which he traveled as a postman, he was never attacked by them , being respected and respecting the Indians .
A fervent Catholic, he made several donations of land and money to the chapel that began its journey and would later become the headquarters of the Bom Jesus Parish of Alfredo Wagner . He was the one who managed to “borrow” the Image of Bom Jesus , which, at the suggestion of the Parish Priest of Santo Amaro, was not returned… See the article: They Forgot Bom Jesus
He was respected not only by the Indians, but his friends had great regard for him. The younger people did not like his seriousness. Talking to a man who was over 80 years old and who knew Bastião da Gracinda when he was old, he told me that he was once beaten by his father because of a misunderstanding between them.
Dona Izaurinha was absolutely naive and innocent! She was surprised by everything, always commenting to her husband: But it’s Bastião!!!
Bastião da Gracinda and Izaurinha were the pioneers who began to populate Barracão, having reserved a place for the Chapel that was gradually built thanks to the piety of the residents who joined them.
Below is the article I referred to from the newspaper “O Apóstolo” and the page on which it was published. The note reports a very interesting episode about the image of Bom Jesus that is found in the Matrix. It shows us how skillful Sebastião António Pereira was in finding a Patron Saint for our Parish.
