Qualla: Ubá

Ubá: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Coroado people used a particular grass - Gynerium sagittatum - to fashion the arrows they carried. In their language it was called U-Uva. When Portuguese priests and explorers arrived in the late eighteenth century and started asking names, the word bent through centuries of linguistic drift and became Ubá. The arrow-grass is still growing along the river that bears the same name, and the city is still standing where the Coroado once lived, though the people themselves are long gone. Some were killed in battles with colonists. Others were taken as slaves. The name survived where the namers could not.

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Ubá: The Catholic Groundwork

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

By the late 1700s, the Portuguese crown was under international pressure over what was happening to the indigenous peoples of Brazil. King José I ordered Governor Luís Diogo Lobo da Silva to organize a more peaceful approach. In November 1767, Father Manoel de Jesus Maria was ass...

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Ubá: A Chapel Becomes a City

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1805, Captain Antonio Januário Carneiro and his brother-in-law Commander José de Faria Alvim Cesário acquired several land grants and brought their families, enslaved people, and livestock to the area. By Vatican-Portuguese agreement, new settlements in the colonies needed a c...

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Ubá: Tobacco, Furniture, and the Ubá Mango

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ubá's economy has pivoted more than once. The city was once one of Brazil's great tobacco producers, and traces of that history linger in old warehouses and family names. Today it hosts one of the main furniture-industry clusters in the country, anchoring the economic and cultura...

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Ubá: A Valley Between Rivers

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Ubá sits in the Zona da Mata mesoregion of Minas Gerais, 290 kilometers southeast of Belo Horizonte and 284 kilometers north of Rio de Janeiro. Most of the municipality drains into the Paraíba do Sul River basin, with a small portion draining toward the Doce. The Ubá River - name...

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Ubá: Children of Ubá

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Several Brazilians who went on to national fame came from Ubá. Ary Barroso, the composer whose Aquarela do Brasil became one of the most recognizable Brazilian songs in the world, was born here in 1903 - a boy who grew up among the coffee plantations and ended up writing the melo...

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