Last modified: 2012-03-17 by ian macdonald
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image by André Pires Godinho,
7 November 2005
A blue flag with a narrow central red on white stripe, a white triangle extending from the hoist bearing the coat of arms.
The municipality of Óbidos (49,254 inhabitants in 2010; 28,021 sq. km) is
located in northern Pará, on the left bank of the Amazon, sharing a border
with Suriname. Óbidos is named for the Portuguese town of the same name.
located 100 km of Lisbon. It keeps several houses built in Portuguese style
in the 16th-20th centuries. Óbidos was founded in 1697 on the most narrow
(1.8 km) and deepest (75 m) point of the Amazon; this strategic place, once
inhabited by the Pauxis Indians, was protected by Fort Pauxis. Aimed at
protecting the region from invasions, the fort was also used by the
Portuguese Crown to perceive tax on navigation on the Amazon. Óbidos was
the site of an episode of the Cabanagem rebellion (1831-1840), which claimed
thousands of lives. After having seized the neighboring towns of Santarém,
Monte Alegre and Alenquer, the rebels were allowed to enter the town as
"friends". Nightly, they seized the fort, stole weapons, and started to loot
the town. The rebels were expelled by the brothers Raimundo Sanches de Brito
and Antônio Manuel Sanches de Brito; following a wish, the inhabitants built
the Bom Jesus chapel, asking for the protection from further rebels' attack.
Óbidos is the birth town of the writers Herculano Marcos Inglês de Sousa
(1856-1918) and José Veríssimo Dias de Matos (1857-1916), two of the founders
(1896) of the Brazilian Academy of Letters ("Academia Brasileira de Letras"),
and Ildefonso Guimarães (1919-2004).
The flag presented above is shown on the Óbidos portal
at http://www.obidos.com.br. The
municipal website shows a slightly different pattern, with the white panel
along the hoist made trapezoidal instead of triangular. The flag shown on the
"Symbols" page is itself slightly different from the flag shown on the header
of the pages of the website.
http://www.obidos.pa.gov.br/portal1/municipio/hino_brasao.asp?iIdMun=100115082
Ivan Sache, 8 February 2012