Why the name "Porto de Galinhas?"

Porto de Galinhas literally means "Chicken Port." The city used to be called Porto Rico. This changed when Brasil outlawed slave trade. The slave trade market was big in the northeastern part of Brasil and so slaves would continually be smuggled in. One place where this happened in a big quantity was the Port of Porto Rico.

Obviously the slave traders couldn't openly go against the law of Brasil so they hid the slaves on their ships and also brought in a great number of chickens. When asked what they were bringing in they would show all the chickens and state that they were chicken venders.

I read where, once they arrived, they would let slave buyers know that new slaves had arrived by going to the beach and using the following code, "There are new chickens in the port."

So the name changed from Porto Rico to Porto de Galinhas.

Our tour guide told us one day that they aren't proud of the history of this name but it stuck and so they make sure they tell the story so that no one forgets the history involved with the city.

Although there isn't pride in the way the city was named, the city won't let you forget the name. Even if you didn't have a clue as to the name of the city, after a 5 minute walk through the main street you would gather it had something to do with the flightless chicken as noted by the slide show below. We took these pictures in the city on our first day there.