Origin of the name Porto de Galinhas

The most often repeated explanation for the name Porto de Galinhas (literally "Port of Chickens") comes from local tradition: the coast is said to have received clandestine landings of enslaved Africans, hidden under crates of guinea fowl. The publications that tell the story do not present documents from the period that prove it.

The common version

According to this account, the beach was called Porto Rico. After the trade in enslaved Africans was banned in 1850, traffickers supposedly kept bringing people in secretly, under loads of guinea fowl, and the password "tem galinha nova no porto" ("there are new chickens at the port") would announce the arrival of a new group. That would be the origin of the current name. This version appears in a 2005 travel report, on local news sites and in the words of the artist Carcará, who carves the chickens of the Vila (the village center of Porto de Galinhas).

The chickens as a symbol

The story became part of the destination's identity. Starting in 1997, Carcará began making colorful chickens from coconut palm roots, which spread across the Vila and became a symbol of Porto de Galinhas and of Ipojuca. The pieces are presented as a way of giving new meaning to the history of the enslaved people brought in the holds of ships. See Vila handicrafts.

From sugarcane to tourism

The area was first occupied for brazilwood extraction and later for sugarcane farming. Its rural character changed in the 1970s, with land subdivisions and holiday homes. Summer residents were the first visitors to the reefs, and tours by jangada, a traditional sail raft, began when tourist numbers grew, between the 1970s and the 1980s; most jangadeiros (jangada sailors) are fishermen or descendants of fishermen. In the 1980s, building on the subdivisions accelerated. Then came hotels, resorts and condominium complexes, encouraged by tourism programs for the south coast such as Projeto Costa Dourada and Prodetur/NE.