Minas Gerais & Espírito Santo

Minas Gerais — "General Mines" — was created by gold. Bandeirantes from São Paulo struck it in the mountains in the 1690s, and the rush that followed drew Portuguese settlers and, above all, enslaved Africans, who did most of the digging and panning. Fights between paulistas and newcomers, the War of the Emboabas, ended in 1709, and towns such as Mariana, Vila Rica — now Ouro Preto, later capital of the captaincy — São João del-Rei and São José del-Rei grew rich on the Crown's fifth. Diamonds found around Arraial do Tijuco, today's Diamantina, in the 1720s were placed under a royal monopoly.

The wealth paid for the baroque churches of Aleijadinho and the painter Manuel da Costa Ataíde. As the gold ran out, a heavy tax sparked the Inconfidência Mineira of 1789, a plot for independence; its best-known member, Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, "Tiradentes", was hanged in Rio in 1792, and São José del-Rei later took his name. Minas turned to cattle, dairy and coffee, and in 1897 the capital moved to the planned city of Belo Horizonte. Juscelino Kubitschek, born in Diamantina, commissioned Pampulha as the city's mayor and later built Brasília as president. Iron-ore mining made the state rich again, and led to the Mariana dam collapse of 2015 and the Brumadinho disaster of 2019, which killed about 270 people.

Espírito Santo was granted to Vasco Fernandes Coutinho in the 1530s; Vitória was founded on its island in 1551. Long a backwater, it received Italian and German settlers in its highlands from the 1840s onwards.

Mineiros have a reputation across Brazil for caution, thrift and quiet hospitality — a visitor is fed first and questioned later. The colonial towns keep a devout Catholic calendar: Holy Week processions fill Ouro Preto and São João del-Rei, and São João del-Rei's church bells, with their own ringing language, are registered as national heritage. Congado, the Afro-Brazilian festivals of drumming, dancing and crowned kings in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary, are strong in the towns and villages. Diamantina's Vesperata, when musicians play from colonial balconies to the street below, is its signature event.

Belo Horizonte gave Brazil the Clube da Esquina of Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges in the 1970s and later the metal band Sepultura, and its bar culture is legendary. Football splits the state between Atlético Mineiro and Cruzeiro. Crafts include the clay figures of the Jequitinhonha valley.

In Espírito Santo, the capixabas mix Portuguese, African, Indigenous, Italian and Pomeranian German heritage; Pomeranian dialect still survives in some highland communities. Afro-Brazilian congo bands play drums and scrapers at coastal festivals, and the clay pots of the paneleiras of Goiabeiras, in Vitória, are registered as national cultural heritage.

Minas Gerais has about 20 million people, the second-largest population among the states. Belo Horizonte has about 2.3 million, with around 6 million in its metropolitan area, which includes the industrial city of Contagem. Uberlândia in the west, Juiz de Fora in the south and Montes Claros in the north are the other large cities, and the colonial towns are small — Ouro Preto has about 75,000 people, many of them students at its university.

The economy rests on iron-ore mining in the Iron Quadrangle, steel, the Fiat car plant at Betim, dairy, cheese and beef, and coffee: Minas is Brazil's largest coffee producer. Living alongside mining dams remains a live issue in many towns.

Espírito Santo has about 3.8 million people, around 2 million of them in Greater Vitória, which takes in Vila Velha, Serra and Cariacica. Its port complex at Tubarão ships iron ore and steel, the state produces offshore oil and gas, and farmers grow much of Brazil's conilon coffee. In both states lunch is the main meal, eaten early, and small-town life still centres on the main square and the church.

Comida mineira is farmhouse cooking from the wood-fired stove. Pão de queijo, small cheese breads made with cassava starch, are eaten at breakfast and with coffee all day. Feijão tropeiro mixes beans with cassava flour, bacon, sausage, egg and greens, a dish linked to the mule drivers of the colonial roads; tutu de feijão is a thick purée of beans and flour; frango com quiabo is chicken stewed with okra, served with angu, a soft cornmeal. Pork is everywhere, from crackling torresmo to roast suckling pig, and couve, finely shredded collard greens, comes with almost everything.

Minas cheese is a point of pride, from fresh queijo Minas to the aged artisanal cheeses of the Serra da Canastra and the Serro. Sweets are preserved and sugary: doce de leite, fig and pumpkin preserves, and goiabada, guava paste, eaten with cheese as "Romeu e Julieta". The town of Salinas is famous for its cachaça.

Espírito Santo's signature is the moqueca capixaba, a fish or seafood stew cooked in a black clay pot with tomato, onion, coriander and annatto, made without the palm oil and coconut milk of the Bahian version. At Easter families make torta capixaba, a baked pie of seafood, salt cod and palm heart.

Ouro Preto, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is the essential colonial town: Aleijadinho's church of São Francisco de Assis, the gilded Nossa Senhora do Pilar, the Inconfidência Museum on Praça Tiradentes and old mine tunnels. Next door is Mariana, and to the south Congonhas, where Aleijadinho's soapstone prophets stand before the sanctuary of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos, another World Heritage Site. Further south, Tiradentes has the gilded Matriz de Santo Antônio and cobbled lanes, and a heritage steam train runs from São João del-Rei. In the north, Diamantina, also on the UNESCO list, has the houses of Chica da Silva and Kubitschek among its whitewashed streets.

Belo Horizonte's Pampulha Modern Ensemble, a UNESCO site, groups Niemeyer's church, casino and ballroom around a lake; the Mercado Central is the city's food hall. Inhotim, in Brumadinho, combines contemporary art pavilions with tropical gardens. Nature lies close: the rock gardens and waterfalls of Serra do Cipó, the Serra da Canastra with the source of the São Francisco, and the caves around Lagoa Santa.

On the Vitória coast, the island capital faces Vila Velha and the hilltop Convento da Penha across the bay, and beaches continue south to Guarapari. Inland, Caparaó National Park reaches the Pico da Bandeira on the Minas border, and Pedra Azul and the Italian-founded town of Santa Teresa lie in the cool highlands.