Caetité

Caetité derives its name from the Tupi language, and means "big stone forest". It combines the words "ka'a", meaning forest, "itá", meaning stone, and "eté", meaning true. The name is a reference to the rock formation east of the city now known as Pedra Redonda.

Archaeological sites in Caetité show continuous settlement in the area for more than 6,000 years. The earliest known inhabitant are the Jê people, who are closely related to the Tupinaé and Pataxós peoples. Some sources say that the Maracá (or Paiaiá) people occupied the region between the Serra do Sincorá and the Serra de Caetité at the end of the 16th century, and that Aracapá occupied the region between Minas do Rio de Contas and Caetité in the 17th century.

Caetité was a nucleus of Catholic proselytism of indigenous people in the 17th century. Cattle ranchers settled in the region at the same time due to the mild climate and water sources. After the establishment of permanent farms, the town served as one of the few resting stops for tropeiros, or cattle drovers, and miners travelling between Minas Gerais and the Chapada Diamantina.

Several families settled in the region at the beginning of the 18th century. Minas do Rio de Contas was separated from Jacobina in 1724; it included lands that would belong to Caetité. The Carvalho family erected a church dedicated to Saint Anne in 1740, which soon generated a small settlement. It was elevated to the category of parish in 1754, under the name Santana do Caetité, and was a district of Minas do Rio de Contas. The population of Caetité petitioned the Portuguese Crown raise the parish to the category of village at the end of the 18th century. This was successful when Vila Nova do Príncipe and Santana were created on April 5, 1810.

Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, a German biologists, visited Caetité in 1817 as part of an expedition of the interior of Brazil commissioned by Maximilian I Joseph, king of Bavaria. They wrote favorably about Caetité, noting that it was the most prosperous in the region, due to the cultivation of cotton. They also recorded the presence of a Latin royal school.

Major Silva Castro, a hero of the Independence of Bahia, was a resident of Caetité. His daughter, Pórcia, was kidnapped by Leolino Pinheiro de Azevedo. The episode inspired the novel Sinhazinha by the Afrânio Peixoto. Silva Castro was the grandfather of the poet Castro Alves.

The village participated indirectly in the struggles for the Independence of Bahia, which occurred as part of the larger independence movement of Brazil. The residents of Caetité supporting the Provisional Government installed in Cachoeira, a village in the Bahian Recôncavo outside the city of Salvador. Struggles against the Portuguese ended in the Bahian Recôncavo in 1823, and some fighting between Brazilians and Portuguese occurred in Caetité.

Caetité, like much of the Brazilian semi-arid sertão, is noted for its livestock production. It additionally has low-level manufacturing of textiles and ceramics. Caetité also became a noted mining area beginning in the early 20th century, producing of amethyst, manganese, iron, and later uranium.

Caetité is the only producer of uranium in Latin America. The Concentrate Unit Nuclear Company of Brazil ({{langx|pt|Unidade de Concentrado de Urânio}}, of (URA)) Fazenda Cachoeira mine is located {{convert|40|km|mi}} from the city center of Caetite. It operated from 2000 to 2014, and supplied fuel to Brazilian nuclear power plants, Angra 1, Angra 2 and, soon, Angra 3. There were five recorded accidents that contaminated the soil and water table of Caetite between 2000 and 2009. The municipalities also accused the company of high rates of cancer among the local population due to contact with radioactive material.

Caetité is home to numerous colonial-period historic structures, many designated as Bahian state monuments. The Historic Center of Caetité was designated a state historic site by the National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN) in 2008.

Residences

• Birthplace of Cesar Zama
• House of Anísio Teixeira
• House at Praça Rodrigues Lima, no. 105
• House at Praça Rodrigues Lima, no. 178
• House at Praça Rodrigues Lima, no. 76

• Anísio Teixeira (1900-1971), pedagogue
• Haroldo Lima (1939-2021), politician
• Paulo Souto (1944), politician
• Rodrigues Lima (1845-1903), physician and politician
• Waldick Soriano (1933-2008), singer and songwriter

{{Weather box|width=auto

|metric first=y

|single line=y

|collapsed = Y

|location = Caetité (1981–2010)

|Jan high C = 28.2

|Feb high C = 29.2

|Mar high C = 28.1

|Apr high C = 27.6

|May high C = 26.9

|Jun high C = 25.2

|Jul high C = 25.1

|Aug high C = 26.3

|Sep high C = 28.3

|Oct high C = 29.4

|Nov high C = 28.4

|Dec high C = 27.9

| year high C = 27.6

|Jan mean C = 22.9

|Feb mean C = 23.5

|Mar mean C = 22.9

|Apr mean C = 22.5

|May mean C = 21.5

|Jun mean C = 19.9

|Jul mean C = 19.6

|Aug mean C = 20.4

|Sep mean C = 22.3

|Oct mean C = 23.5

|Nov mean C = 23.1

|Dec mean C = 22.9

| year mean C = 22.1

|Jan low C = 18.7

|Feb low C = 19.0

|Mar low C = 19.0

|Apr low C = 18.5

|May low C = 17.2

|Jun low C = 15.7

|Jul low C = 15.0

|Aug low C = 15.3

|Sep low C = 16.6

|Oct low C = 18.0

|Nov low C = 18.6

|Dec low C = 18.8

| year low C = 17.5

|precipitation colour = green

|Jan precipitation mm = 98.4

|Feb precipitation mm = 69.0

|Mar precipitation mm = 120.7

|Apr precipitation mm = 45.8

|May precipitation mm = 12.5

|Jun precipitation mm = 10.1

|Jul precipitation mm = 10.4

|Aug precipitation mm = 4.9

|Sep precipitation mm = 17.6

|Oct precipitation mm = 61.9

|Nov precipitation mm = 153.6

|Dec precipitation mm = 164.6

|year precipitation mm = 769.5

| unit precipitation days = 1.0 mm

| Jan precipitation days = 7

| Feb precipitation days = 6

| Mar precipitation days = 9

| Apr precipitation days = 5

| May precipitation days = 3

| Jun precipitation days = 3

| Jul precipitation days = 3

| Aug precipitation days = 2

| Sep precipitation days = 2

| Oct precipitation days = 4

| Nov precipitation days = 10

| Dec precipitation days = 11

| year precipitation days =

| Jan humidity = 67.7

| Feb humidity = 64.2

| Mar humidity = 70.4

| Apr humidity = 69.5

| May humidity = 64.8

| Jun humidity = 64.3

| Jul humidity = 61.8

| Aug humidity = 54.9

| Sep humidity = 53.1

| Oct humidity = 54.4

| Nov humidity = 65.7

| Dec humidity = 70.6

| year humidity = 63.5

|Jan sun = 230.3

|Feb sun = 220.0

|Mar sun = 207.5

|Apr sun = 206.0

|May sun = 219.8

|Jun sun = 214.8

|Jul sun = 233.3

|Aug sun = 260.7

|Sep sun = 251.9

|Oct sun = 239.2

|Nov sun = 187.5

|Dec sun = 188.1

|year sun = 2659.1

|source 1 = Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia{{cite web

| url = http://www.inmet.gov.br/portal/index.php?r=clima/normaisclimatologicas

| title = Normais Climatológicas Do Brasil 1981–2010

| publisher = Instituto Nacional de Meteorologia

| language = Portuguese

| accessdate = 21 May 2024}}

}}

{{Commons category}}

{{Reflist|2|refs=

{{Cite Q|Q106927370}}

{{cite journal|last1=Costa|first1=Flávio Luiz|last2=Lima|first2=Hernani Mota de|title=Plano conceitual de fechamento para a unidade de concentrado de urânio da INB em Caetité, Bahia|journal=Rem: Revista Escola de Minas|volume=59|issue=4|year=2006|pages=403–408|issn=0370-4467|doi=10.1590/S0370-44672006000400009|doi-access=free}}

{{cite web |url= https://cidades.ibge.gov.br/brasil/ba/caetite/panorama |title= Caetité |language=pt |publisher=Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) | place = Brasília, Brazil |date=2020 |access-date=2021-05-05}}

{{Cite Q|Q61935830|volume=4|page=16}}

{{cite web |url=http://www.inb.gov.br/Contato/Perguntas-Frequentes/Pergunta/Conteudo/quantas-minas-de-uranio-existem-em-operacao-na-america-latina?Origem=426 |title=Quantas minas de urânio existem em operação na América Latina? |language=pt | place = Rio de Janeiro |publisher=Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil--INB |date=2019-08-21 |accessdate=2021-05-21 }}

{{cite web |url=http://www.bvanisioteixeira.ufba.br/artigos/aguiar.htm#:~:text=Criada%20atrav%C3%A9s%20da%20lei%201846,Caetit%C3%A9%20comemorou%20a%20c%C3%A9lebre%20conquista. |title=Escola Normal de Caetité: Menina dos Olhos de Anísio Teixeira |language=pt |last=Aguiar |first=Tereza Guanais |work=Escola Normal de Caetité: Menina dos Olhos de Anísio Teixeira |date=2000-07-12 |accessdate=2021-05-26 }}

{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Sistema de Informações do Patrimônio Cultural da Bahia (SIPAC) |title= Imóveis da Cidade de Caetité (Poligonal) |url=http://patrimonio.ipac.ba.gov.br/bem/casa-natal-de-cesar-zama/ |year=2021 |publisher=Instituto do Patrimônio Artístico e Cultural da Bahia |location=Salvador, Bahia |accessdate=2021-05-15}}

{{cite book |last=Silva |first1=Kalina Vanderlei Paiva da |title='Nas Solidões Vastas e Assustadoras'- Os pobres do açúcar e a conquista do sertão de Pernambuco nos séculos XVII e XVIII |location=Recife |publisher=Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas |year=2003 |pages=197–198}}

}}

{{Municipalities of Bahia}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caetite}}

Category:Municipalities in Bahia