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 was designed by the engineer of the Recife Municipal Chamber, J. Louis Lieuthier, in 1871, who was inspired by the Grenelle Market in Paris, and it was built by the French engineer Louis Léger Vauthier, who was also responsible for the construction of Santa Isabel Theatre.

Segarrega, whose first edition was released on 8 December 1821, was the second newspaper in circulation in the city of Recife, nine months after the Aurora Pernambucana (27 March 1821).

At the end of the 18th Century, to resolve the constant problems of flooding caused by tidal variations on the route that took the public from the Cinco Pontas Fort to the settlement of Afogados, Governor D. Tomás José de Melo ordered repairs to the previously-constructed embankment.