Manuel de Borba Gato was a pioneer from São Paulo, discoverer of gold and held the position of ordinary judge in Sabará.
He participated in the Emboabas War and was the son-in-law of the pioneer Fernão Dias Pais.
Borba Gato's Biography
Manuel de Borba Gato was born in São Paulo in 1649. His parents were from Terceira Island and settled in the then captaincy of São Vicente in the 1630s.
His father, João Borba Gato, participated in flags. Likewise, his uncle, Belchior de Borba Gato, was a trailblazer in the backlands of São Paulo and later became involved in the revolt against the Jesuits and in the Acclamation of Amador Bueno (1641).
With this family environment, the young Manuel Borba Gato would become a pioneer and married Maria Leite, daughter of the "Esmeraldas Hunter" and Indians, Fernão Dias Pais.
The Life of Girl Scout
Manuel Borba Gato, with his father-in-law, traveled between 1674 and 1681 through the forests of São Paulo and Mato Grosso.
After 1681, when Dias Paes had already died, he went to Minas Gerais where he had a falling out with a nobleman and ended up killing him. In order not to be condemned, he preferred to escape into the woods and ended up finding gold in Rio das Velhas. In this way, he negotiated with the authorities a pardon for the crime in exchange for revealing the exact location of the gold veins.
Thus, in 1698, he obtains pardon and the rank of lieutenant (an officer who performs, by delegation, the functions of another person). Then he indicated where the precious metal was in the riverside and in the Sabara mountain range.
He would later ascend to the rank of Lieutenant General of Mato and was responsible for organizing justice, dividing up the gold mines and sending the taxes that corresponded to the Portuguese Crown.
It is said that Borba Gato was highly esteemed by the governors of São Paulo, as he handed over various mining permits, dates, and mines to friends and relatives.
During the War of the Emboabas he pitted the population of the village of the Rio das Velhas (current Sabara) against the outsider Manuel Nunes Viana.
Borba Gato even established a gang (document posted for the population to know about official resolutions) demanding the removal of Nunes Viana from the village. The disagreement between the two was the trigger, among other factors, to the war that would confront pioneers and newcomers in Minas Gerais.
Borba Gato died in 1718 and his remains are in an unknown location.
Statue of Borba Gato and Controversy
Bandeirantes like Raposo Tavares, Fernão Dias Paes and Borba Gato are part of the historical formation of the city and the state of São Paulo. The three names cited baptize streets, roads and have statues in the Museu Paulista.
After all, because of the flags, the limits of the Treaty of Tordesillas were extended and Portuguese America grew. Subsequently, the sovereigns of Portugal and Spain would have to sign other treaties in order to resolve the boundary issues between their colonies in America.
However, Brazilian historiography has reevaluated the role of pioneers, as one of the objectives of these expeditions was to hunt indigenous people and enslave them. Often entire villages were destroyed and their inhabitants dispersed forever.
Borba Gato, in addition to having a statue in the Museu Paulista, has a large monument measuring 10 meters in height and weighing 20 tons in the Santo Amaro district. Inaugurated in 1963, by Júlio Guerra, it portrays the explorer with a beard, hat and gun in hand.
In 2008, a group of city residents questioned the value of the homage to a man of dubious virtue and proposed removing the monument. The initiative did not prosper, but the reflection was left for future generations.
Again, in 2020, the monument was spray-painted, as many consider that a person who caused so much suffering to the indigenous people does not deserve to be on public roads.
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