Salt in history

Records of the use of salt date from 5000 years. It was already used in Babylon, Egypt, China and in pre-Colombian civilizations. In earlier civilizations, however, only the populations leaving on the sea side had access to salt. Even those lived periods of scarcity caused by climate conditions and by elevation of sea level. Mining technology started to be developed in the Middle Ages.

Scarce and precious, salt was sold by weight of gold, and was used on several occasions as money. Among the best known historical examples of this is that the Romans paid their soldiers with salt originating the word salary.

Being so precious , salt was the cause of several disputes. Rome and Cartago started a war in 250 b.C. to dispute the control of salt production and distribution in the Adriatic Sea and in the Mediterranean Sea.

Monopoly and the cost of taxes on the salt were the reason of famous rebellions. In France, the increase of a tax created in 1340, called Gabelle, contributed to start the French Revolution in 1789. Centuries later, in India, abusive taxes charged by the English colonizers encouraged the civil disobedience, led by Ghandi, in the years 1930’s.

In some European countries, the production and storage of salt were given to monasteries. The oldest known document about salt in Portugal, dating from 959, tells of a donation of land and salt lagoons by a countess to a monastery. The mine of Wielickzka, in Poland, one of the oldest in the world is considered cultural heritage of the world by United Nations for its wall carvings, was initiated  in the 11th century with a letter of mining rights given by the State to the monastery of Tyniec.

In Brazil

Since Portugal had salt lagoons, they exported it to their colonies and would prohibit not only the local extraction but also the use of the natural salt lagoons. Brazilians, who had access to free and abundant salt, were forced in 1655 to use expensive salt from Portugal. At the end of 17th century, when cattle started to be raised and gold mining was an important source of wealth, the need for salt increased to the point that Portugal could no longer supply and permitted the use of Brazilian salt, provided it came from regular contractors.

From 1808, when D. João VI, menaced by Napoleon, transferred the seat of the Portuguese Empire to Rio de Janeiro, extraction and the commerce of salt were permitted inside the kingdom, but importation was still done. The first artificial salt lagoons started in Brazil after independence.

In Rio Grande do Norte

One of the first records of Portuguese interest on the natural salt lagoons in the Brazilian Northeast was the account of a governor (Capitão Mor), Pedro Coelho in 1627. Beaten by French pirates in a battle on the hills of Ibiapaba, in Ceará, Coelho retreated his army to the sea shore and found –where today is Areia Branca-  extensions of salt lagoons to fill many ships.

In 1641 Gedeão Morritz, in command of the Duch garrison in Ceará, reached the same salt lagoons and, from then on, the Dutch, who imported salt since their arrival brought by ships of West Indies Company began to extract salt.

The salt from Rio Grande do Norte was only sold in other provinces from 1808 onwards, with the end of prohibition by D. João VI. In the first half of the 20th century several problems affected this commerce, among these the high cost of transportation that made the local product more expensive than the imported one.