Pernambuco was one of the first busy Brazilian regions for the Portuguese. In 1535, Duarte Rabbit became the captain of the port, by establishing the village of Olinda and developing the first infrastructures in the region. In the colonial period, Pernambuco became a great producer of sugar and during many years it was responsible for more than half of the Brazilian exportations. This wealth attracted new European colonialists who contributed in making Pernambuco one of the richest architectural patrimonies in Colonial America.

The wealth of Pernambuco was hot on the interest of other nations. In the XVI century, the dutch ilanded in the state. Between 1630 and 1654, Pernambuco was managed by the Company of Occidental India. One of its representatives, the prince João Maurício de Nassau, brought to Pernambuco a form to manage renovadora and tolerant. It carries through innumerable workmanships of urbanization in Recife, it extends the farming of the sugar cane, assures the freedom of worship.

In the dutch period, the first synagogue of Americas is established in Recife. Loving of the arts, Nassau has in its team innumerable artists, as Frans Post and Albert Eckhrout, pioneers in the visual documentation of the Brazilian landscape and the daily one of its inhabitants. The pernambucanos if are proud of its altiva participation in the History of Brazil, always keeping high libertarian ideals, as in the War of the Pedlars, between 1710 and 1712; the Pernambucana Revolution, in 1817; the Confederation of the Equator, in 1824; the Praieira Revolt, in 1848.

With the advent of the Republic, Pernambuco looks for to extend its industrial net, but he continues marked for the traditional exploration of the sugar. The State modernizes its working relations and leads movements for the northeast development, as at the moment of the creation of the Sudene. From middle of the decade of 60, Pernambuco starts to reorganize its economy, extending the road net until the hinterland and investing in polar regions of investment in the interior of the state. In the last decade, the sectors of tip of the pernambucana economy are consolidated, sobretudos those atrelados to the sector of services (tourism, computer science, medicine) and establish a constant trend of modernization of the public administration.

Source:http://www.recife.pe.gov.br/pr/secplanejamento/inforec/