Two important historical factors contributed towards the first occupations of the Providencia hill: the large number of victorious soldiers returning from the Canudos war, that landed in Rio on 5 November 1897 with nowhere to live, and the large concentration of black people who filled the city after the abolition of slavery. With the passing of the Law of the Free Womb in 1871, the city filled with ex-slaves looking for work. At this time, a large number of corticos sprang up in the Central region, which became an important region for the concentration of work with the building of Central do Brasil station in 1858.
It was during this time that the first favela was born, known as “Morro da favela.”
The origin of the term came from the Canudos war, where the original Morro da favela was situated. This morro, or hill, had a plant growing on it called faveleira.
Some of the soldiers, upon their return to Rio in 1897, did not receive the payment they were promised, and went to invade a farmhouse on Providencia hill, which afterwards got the nickname Morro da Favela.
But it was with the total abolition of slavery that the city became crowded and lacking housing for the people that filled it. “All the slaves from Vale de Paraiba – 200,000 – invaded the city of Rio de Janeiro. They had nowhere to live here, and so the first homeless people appeared, and the concept of the multitude began,” explained historian Milton Teixeira.
Providencia hill became an ideal place to shelter those on low incomes. Surrounded on one side by a masonry, factories and by the lines of the Estrada Ferro Central do Brasil, and with a protestant cemetery and a port region on the other, the land was cheap and free.