It was founded in 1892 and is located in the municipality of Ipojuca, on the right bank and slightly before the Salgado (Salty) River mouth.
It was previously a sugarcane plantation founded by Cosme Dias, before the Dutch invasion, in 1625.
Its owners were the firms Costa & Barros (concession); Bento & Brito; Xavier & Bandeira (1929). Later it belonged to Joaquim Bandeira de Melo (1930);
Aníbal Cardoso dos Santos, Miguel Santos and José Borba; Rui Cardoso Gonçalves dos Santos; Fernando Peres (1971-1972) and Joel de Albuquerque Queiroz (1975).
In 1929 it had eighteen fields, 45km of railway, five locomotives and eight cars. It had the capacity to process 500 tonnes of sugarcane and produce 6,000 litres of ethanol in 22 hours. The transportation of sugarcane and fuel was by its own railway, while sugar and alcohol was by barges the factory owned.
During the milling period around 90 workers were employed at the factory, including four minors. Foreigners or women were not accepted. It also had a workers’ village with 80 houses, maintained a school with an average annual attendance of 50 students and hospital assistance for its employees.
In the 1960s, at the height of the peasant leagues commanded by Francisco Julião, the Salgado Sugarcane Factory encountered great financial difficulty.
It was administrated by Father Antônio Melo, who could not solve the administrative problems. Nor could the company’s partners, delivering the factory into the hands of the workers.
Currently the Salgado Sugarcane Factory has an area of 15,500 hectares, with nineteen plantations and around 4,000 hectares of mechanised land. Its production in the 1994-1995 harvest reached 1,120,000 sacks of sugar.
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, Salgado (Salty) 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