Hermann Blumenau

Hermann Bruno Otto Blumenau (born 26 December 1819 in Hasselfelde, † October 30, 1899 in Braunschweig) is the founder of the eponymous city of Blumenau, Santa Catarina, Brazil.

Life and work

He was the sixth child of a forest officer. After training as a pharmacist 1836-1840 he worked in Hasselfelde and Erfurt. From 1844 to 1846 he was enrolled at the University of Erlangen, where he earned his Ph.D. in chemistry.

Through contacts with the natural scientist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, with Alexander von Humboldt and the Brazilian Consul General, he began to be interested in the emigration to Brazil, which he toured for two years following his studies first.

1848 decided the Society for the Protection of German emigrants in southern Brazil, based in Hamburg, to establish a colony in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, under the direction of Blumenau. He returned in 1850 back to Santa Catarina and founded on 2 September of the same year with a total of 17 German colonists (mainly artisans, only two farmers ) in the valley of the Itajaí - Açu River colony Blumenau. In 1852 he sold a further eleven land to German settlers. This year, the major biologist Johann Friedrich Theodor Müller belonged to the inhabitants of the young colony, the finally settling in 1865 in Blumenau. The colony itself had great difficulty so Blumenau 1854 a trip to Rio de Janeiro took and contacts to Germany sought to gain there support which should prevent the failure of his project. He complained in letters that German authorities the emigration of able-bodied population unsupported frequently critical of standing and such things.

Blumenau 1859 decided to hand over the colony of Brazil's crown. The contract for the transfer of the colony was signed on 13 January 1860. With the takeover of the colony by the Brazilian Empire Blumenau was used as the first director (Portuguese Diretor ) of the colony. In 1880 the colony to the city ( município ) was appointed and Blumenau its first mayor (Portuguese prefeito ).

In 1884 he returned to Germany and settled in Brunswick, where he died in 1899 and was buried in the General Cemetery of Brunswick. In 1974 his remains were exhumed and transferred to Blumenau, where a mausoleum was erected for him.