Located in the south of the municipality of Barreiros, it was founded between 1885 and 1890 with the name ‘Carassu’ by João Carlos de Mendonça Vasconcelos and João Paulo Moreira Temporal. Its milling capacity was twenty thousand tonnes of crushed sugarcane per harvest
It was deactivated and replaced by the Central Barreiros sugarcane factory, built by the Companhia A. M. de Pernambuco (A.M. Company of Pernambuco), which belonged to Alfredo Osório and Estácio de Albuquerque Coimbra.
In 1929 it had twenty fields, 28km of railways, four locomotives and fifty wagons. The transportation of sugarcane and firewood was by railway and trucks, while sugar and alcohol was by waterways.
During the milling season there were approximately 180 workers employed at the factory. All of the factory’s machinery, made of metal, was brought in from the Netherlands. It was said that this was the most modern and efficient factory of its age. It had the capacity of working 500 tonnes of sugarcane and producing 3,000 litres of ethanol.
The land was worked through leasing and direct administration by the factory.
With the death of Estácio Coimbra in 1937, the factory was inherited by João Coimbra, Jaime Coimbra and other siblings who ran it until it was acquired by the Carlos de Brito Group, of the sweet factory Peixe (“Fish”) in Pesqueira.
In the 1950s, the factory reached an annual production of 650 thousand 60kg sacks of sugar.
By being situated in an area subject to intense downpours, which diminishes the sucrose content, there was concern in the factory to cultivate industrially high-yielding varieties of sugarcane.
Under the ownership of the Othon Bezerra de Melo Group, the Central Barreiros Sugarcane Factory went bankrupt in 1999, when it had around 5,000 workers, 20 hectares of land and was the main source of employment and income in the region.
Recife, 7 August 2003.
(Updated on 9 September 2009).
Translated by Peter Leamy, January 2012.
sources consulted
ANDRADE, Manuel Correia de. História das usinas de açúcar de Pernambuco. Recife: FJN. Ed. Massangana, 1989. 114 p. (República, v.1)
GONÇALVES & SILVA, O assucar e o algodão em Pernambuco. Recife: [s.n.], 1929. 90 p.
MOURA, Severino. Senhores de engenho e usineiros, a nobreza de Pernambuco. Recife: Fiam, CEHM, Sindaçúcar, 1998. 320 p. (Tempo municipal, 17).
how to quote this text
Source: GASPAR, Lúcia. Central Barreiros Sugarcane Factory. Pesquisa Escolar Online, Joaquim Nabuco Foudation, Recife. Available at: <https://pesquisaescolar.fundaj.gov.br/en/>. Accessed: day month year. Exemple: 6 Aug. 2009