Boa Vista Market, located on Santa Cruz St, Boa Vista, Recife, was built at the beginning of the 19th century, however the date of its inauguration is unknown.
According to Pereira da Costa for the construction of this new market, known commonly by the name Ribeira da Boa Vista, (Boa Vista Riverside), the Senate gave a loan of 4:000$000, as an Ordinance from the board of the provincial government stipulates on 21 October 1823, ordering the Treasury to lend the House of Representatives the referred amount… With the construction of the market, the street took the common name of Ribeira da Boa Vista, which is the stretch that runs along the side wall of the Church of the Santa Cruz to Quatro Cantos (Four Corners), so called because of the intersection of four different streets: S. Gonçalo, runs into Visconde de Albuquerque, formerly ‘da Glória’, and the beginning of Visconde de Goiana, which previously was ‘do Cotovelo’.
At the site were the stables and the cemetery of the Chapel, which today is the Church of the Santa Cruz. There are few official documents, though during the time of slavery it was also a slave market.
Despite having undergone several changes and reforms, Boa Vista Market today maintains many of its architectural characteristics. The iron gates, still to this day, preserve in their pilasters, a symbol that shows the place where the negotiations or auctions were held for African slaves, nowadays known by the traders as maçã portuguesa (Portuguese apple).
Its stalls, where today cereals, greens, meat, fish, herbs and haberdashery items are sold and which house bars with regional food, were designed to display and sell African slaves who had been smuggled into Brazil.
Recife, 14 June 2007.
(Updated on 31 August 2009).
Translated by Peter Leamy, January 2012.
sources consulted
COSTA, Francisco Augusto Pereira da. Anais pernambucanos, 1818-1823. Recife: Arquivo Público Estadual, 1962. v.8. p.217-218.
MERCADO das Boa Vista. Disponível em:
Acesso em: 24 abr. 2007.
how to quote this text
Source: GASPAR, Lúcia. Boa Vista Market. Pesquisa Escolar Online, Joaquim Nabuco Foudation, Recife. Available at: <https://pesquisaescolar.fundaj.gov.br/en/>. Accessed: day month year. Exemple: 6 Aug. 2009