Paraná, a state of Brazil, area about 77,000 sq. miles, 1950 population was 2,149,509 (2006 population was 9,150,000). Its capital is Curitiba, with a population of 141,349 in 1959 (1,757,904 in 2005). Paraná became the home in 1935 ff. of some of the Mennonites who had originally (1930) settled in Santa Catharina, also a state in Brazil, some on the Krauel, some on the Stoltz plateau. The settlement at Auhagen on the Stoltz plateau did not prosper economically; therefore most of the settlers, 75 families with 368 persons, left in 1935-36 and settled (a few in Blumenau and Sao Paulo) mostly near Curitiba, the capital of Paraná. Later when the Krauel settlement dissolved most of the group went to Paraná near Curitiba, while others went to Bagé in the state of Rio Grand do Sul, founding a largely Mennonite Brethren settlement there in 1949-50.
The first settlement in Paraná was made in 1935 by 38 families at the village of Bouqueirao, some 6 miles from Curitiba. In 1936 a second settlement of 28 families was made in the same area, and in 1937 a third with 74 families called Xaxim. In 1948 a fourth settlement, Guarituba, was founded 12 miles from Curitiba. In the city of Curitiba itself, in the suburb Villa Guaira, a Mennonite area developed, which in 1953 had 75 families. In 1953 the total Mennonite population in and around Curitiba was 292 families, with 1300 persons. The last Mennonite settlement in Paraná was made in 1951 about 50 miles northwest of Curitiba, and was called New Witmarsum. In 1953 it had 53 families with 319 persons. Thus the total in Paraná was 245 families with 1,619 persons. In the Bouqueirao area the settlers during the 1950s were largely dairy farmers supplying Curitiba with most of its milk. The New Witmarsum settlers were largely dairy and cattle farmers.
Barg, Wilhelm. "Die Mennoniten bei Curitiba in Brasilien" in Der Bote (1948): No. 1283, p. 2 f.
Fretz, J. W. Pilgrims in Paraguay. Scottdale, 1953.
Hege, Christian and Christian Neff. Mennonitisches Lexikon. 4 vols. Frankfurt & Weierhof: Hege; Karlsruhe; Schneider, 1913-1967: v. III, 335.
Quiring, Walter. "Auhagen in Brasilien, eine gescheiterte mennonitische Bergsiedlung." in Der Bote (1948): Nos. 1279-86.
Quiring, Walter. Im Schweisse Deines Angesichts. Steinbach, 1953.
|Author(s)||Harold S Bender|
Cite This Article
Bender, Harold S. "Paraná (Brazil)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1959. Web. 24 Nov 2017. http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Paran%C3%A1_(Brazil)&oldid=60041.
Bender, Harold S. (1959). Paraná (Brazil). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 24 November 2017, from http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Paran%C3%A1_(Brazil)&oldid=60041.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, p. 120. All rights reserved.
©1996-2017 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.