Since 1727, the Jesuits, together with the Tape (Guarani) Indians, raised a cross to register the domain in Vacaria dos Pinhais. When the great squatters of these lands died, the fields were bought, in “Juizo de Ausentes”, by Captain Antônio da Costa Ribeiro, in 1764.
Owner of the São Gonzalo farm, Riberiro, between the Serra Geral and the sources of the Antas River, when he died and without having descendants, the same fields were once again placed in the “Praça dos absentes” and bought in 1787 by Father Bernardo Lopes da Silva. , Lieutenant José Pereira da Silva and Manoel José Leão, who passed on in 1789 to the settler Antônio Manoel Velho who named it Fazenda Santo Antônio dos Ausentes.
The three sesmarias known as dos Ausentes in the measurement and demarcation added up the area, going from ten sesmarias, which were only subdivided from 1874, the date of the death of Ignácio Manoel Velho, one of the heirs who kept the area intact, which later united to others, it would become the municipality of São José dos Ausentes.
One of the versions is that few people were living in this place for a long time, due to the bad weather conditions, the cold was so bad that the city often had its people absent. The origin of the name of the municipality “São José” by the patron saint of the place.
Of the sesmeiros João, José and Manoel, after acquiring farms, two of them were murdered, thus considering the Land of the “Absent”. A corner where the highest springs of clear water are found in the approximate 70 kilometers of wall (walls) of the Serra Geral, the capões that keep secrets, the tufted araucarias and the vegetation on the corner of the bearded peraus with multicolored mosses form postcards.