Jiquiá is the name of a neighbourhood in Recife that was situated a little beyond Afogados. Like so many other districts of the city, it has a history intertwined with the development of the Pernambuco sugar fiefdoms, during the Brazilian Colonial period.

The plantation was situated where today the Praça João Alfredo (João Alfredo Square) is located. The plantation manor, where the owners lived, was known for a long time as the Sobrado Grande da Madalena (Madalena Plantation Manor).

The Santo Amaro (St Maurus) neighbourhood traces its origins back to 1681, when Major Luís do Rego Barros built, on the ruins of Fort Salinas, a chapel dedicated to St Maurus of Salinas, whose patronage gave the name to the neighbourhood.

The first sugar mills – made up of sugar planters and their families, farmers, chaplains, factories, bankers and slaves – appeared on the banks of the Capibaribe river, becoming large population centres whose slave quarters multiplied, giving rise to villages.

It went towards Cabo, made a curve towards the Motocolombó Bridge, where it emptied into the sea east of Nogueira Island at a place called Mercatudo. According to the 1746 Description of Pernambuco, there were four leather tanneries there with 42 slaves.