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.

The name Torre [tower] comes from the plantation’s old chapel, which has maintained its initial invocation of Our Lady of the Rosary, and later became the parish church