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Jacareí, São Paulo State (Brazil)

by Joseph McMillan

About the Flag

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About the Flag of Jacareí

On http://www.valevirtual.com.br/jacarei/simbolos.htm, by clicking the images you will get information in Portuguese about the flag and coat of arms, which reads:

a) The coat of arms of the municipality on a field made of two [horizontal] bars of white and red.
b) Under the arms, stripes of black, white and red, shaped as a cross, evoking not only the Christian origin, but also the colors of the State of São Paulo, in the flag of which they recall the three races that made the state great.
c) White is for the purity of ideals, tradition, and nobility of actions for the common good, and red is for fighting spirit, the capacity of the Jacareian people for accomplishment.
Authorship: Dr. Enzo Silveira
Adopted on 2 May 1968 by Law no. 1,167 by order of Prefect José Cristovão Arouca.

Dov Gutterman, translated by Jorge Candeias, 24 January 1999

Description of the coat of arms [restated into English heraldic terminology--Ed.] from the same site:

On a Portuguese shield ensigned by a mural crown, which is distinctive to municipalities, per fess, the chief divided per pale:
- (dexter chief) gules a river argent and emerging therefrom a leopard proper [in Portuguese jacaré], canting arms of the city according to the meaning of its name in the Brazilian language.
- (sinister chief) gules a lion argent, from the shield of the Afonsos [kings of Portugal] in the old Portuguese armorial, evoking the Aiqueira Afonsos [note in the original text says this reference in an error], founders of the village in 1652, which was elevated to a town in 1653 and to a city in 1849.
- (base) argent, a fortress embattled proper, with portal and loopholes, recalling that Jacareí was the redoubt or stronghouse of Bartolomeu Fernandes de Faria, the famous pioneer who was celebrated in the first for his attack on the salt warehouses in Santos, reacting to the crimes of the traders whose greed reduced the people of the Planalto to desperation. He was later prosecuted for this deed, imprisoned, and was killed in prison in Bahia on the eve of his scheduled execution. In the portal of the tower, a sentinel armed with an arquebus and dressed in the doublet of the Paulistan bandeirantes recalls the deed of Bartolomeu Fernandes de Faria. The motto in silver letters on a red scroll also refers to him, with the words "For the rights and honor of the Paulistas" (Pro Paulistanum jure et honore).
The fruited branches of coffee recall Jacareí's debt to its great coffee industry.
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