Résumé
Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira is the main city of the Upper Rio Negro, in the Far North-West of Brazil. Being the only "big" city of a vast and scarcely populated region of more than 200 000 km(2), the town can be considered as its metropolis, even if it counts only little more than 13 000 inhabitants. This paper analyses the regional system or the upper basin of the Rio Negro, very peculiar as compared to other brazilian regions, and the city's role as a regional capital city.
The foundation of Sao Gabriel occured in the late XVIIIth century, about a century after the first Portuguese entered the region. It remained mostly atone during one more century, before the arrival of the salesian missionaries in the early XXth. Those made of it the center of their activity, which, in turn, made of Sao Gabriel a urban reference for the whole "dog's head" (as the brazilian design that part of their territory whose border roughly sketches a dog's head) region. During the second part of the XXth century, the federal government of Brazil will reinforce its presence in the area, as a part o a strategy aimed at strengthening its controle over distant regions. Its action will follow the salesian model, implanting distant outposts along the principal rivers and using Sao Gabriel as a central base for its activities. Thus, the city progressively sees a reinforced presence of armed forces, as well as of other federal agencies. But it is also the only access to a vast region that outlies the brazilian border, and as such it benefits itself of all the regional commercial activity.
More recently, it has been stressed that Sao Gabriel lies in a region where population is in its majority formed by descendant of amerindians, and is located in a little enclave within large Indian lands, motivating big NGOs, financed localy and internationaly, to install there centers of operations and to develop alternative socio-economical programs.
The recent dynamics of the city points out rapid growth, even if it remains modest if one take into acount the modestness of the population involved and the smalness of the urbanized area. In a most original way within Brazil, it seems to grow without promoting a wide deforestation and the newly installed populations retain strong ties with their original comunity. Sao Gabriel thus appears not only to be a city within the forest, but most profoundly a true rainforest city.