At the beginning of the colonisation of Pernambuco, the land comprising the Afogados neighbourhood was donated to Jerônimo de Albuquerque by grantee Duarte Coelho.

Apipucos or‘Apopucos’,as it used to be spelt, is an indigenous Tupi (Apé-Puc) name that meanslong pathto some, and path that divides, crossroads or where two paths meet to others.

In the early twentieth century, the current district of Arruda was known as New Road and, until the arrival of the first ‘maxambomba’ (small locomotives where the drivers worked in a cabin with no cover), it was an unappealing place.

The Beberibe valley is very narrow, passing through low-lying land and marshlands from its source to the eponymous suburb. That is why the land alongside it – formed by ferruginous and massapê clay – becomes inundated after a flood occurs.

Where did the name Boa Vista [good view] come from? It originated from the Palace of Boa Vista (or Schoonzit in Dutch), which was built in Recife by Maurice of Nassau in 1643, for his rest and leisure.