Pinch a roast chicken
And jail’s your reward
But plunder the coffers?
They’ll make you a Lord!33
The government of the colony was based on the strictly hierarchical structure of institutions in Portugal. The Municipal Chambers were subordinate to the governments of the captaincies, which were in turn subordinate to the government-general of the colony, which was subordinate to the Palace in Lisbon where all power was centralized. The plan now was to create a new seat of the empire that would be a mirror image of the old, with the transference of Portugal’s institutions, lock stock and barrel, to the colony: ‘Organizing the empire from Brazil […] meant reproducing the structure in Lisbon and using it to provide jobs for the unemployed.’34 The most strategic government functions were the first to be transferred: the military, the courts, the police and the exchequer. As Brazil had been governed in accordance with the Philippine Ordinances – the legal code that had been in force in Portugal since the seventeenth century – some of Portugal’s key institutions were already established in the colony. The transference of the others was thus a process of superimposing, merging and adapting them to those that already existed. These institutions were the safeguard of the sovereign’s power, in keeping with the tenets of the Ordinances: ‘The king is the law incarnate on earth. He can make the law and revoke it as he deems fit.’35 The High Court36 was already established in Brazil, under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the Portuguese Realm,37 based in Lisbon.38 Now the Supreme Court itself was brought to the colony along with other ancient Portuguese courts that came as part of the package: the Royal Dispatches39 – the highest court in the land – and the Royal Council of Conscience,40 which had jurisdiction over the Archdiocese of Brazil.41
The absolute power of the sovereign was, however, by no means unanimously accepted in his American colony. Whereas in Europe the danger came from the example of the French Revolution, in America it came from the republican ideals of the United States. Thus on its arrival in Rio de Janeiro, the Portuguese Crown took immediate steps to reinforce its policy of centralization. On 5 April 1808 the Court Police Commissariat for the Brazilian State (which had existed in Portugal since 1760) was established by royal decree. Almost everything became the responsibility of the Court Police: guarding the king, organizing his schedule, installing military barracks, conducting municipal works, inspecting the theatres, cataloguing carriages and seagoing vessels, registering foreigners, issuing passports, controlling public festivities, detaining escaped slaves, and pursuing and imprisoning those who opposed the government. This new structure for the defence of the colony included the foundation of the Military Archive for the creation and storage of charts and maps of Brazil and the other Overseas Dominions, and, in 1810, of the Military Academy, for teaching the sciences of mathematics, physics, chemistry, natural history, fortifications and defence.42
Thus, although a number of Portuguese institutions were already established in Brazil, with the arrival of the royal court their number and the scope of their activities grew beyond all recognition. One of the indirect effects of such far-reaching changes was that business activities in the colony acquired a far greater degree of autonomy. A significant example of this was the creation of the Banco do Brasil in 1808. Its official task was to facilitate trade and meet the needs of the market, but the consequences of its activities were soon to go beyond the reach of state control.
‘A VENEER OF CIVILIZATION’
The process was completely new. For the first time in history a colony was being turned into the capital of an empire. This inversion of roles required the production of vast quantities of documents: treaties, decrees, legislation and registers of the acts of the various departments of government. And all this vast amount of material needed to be printed, with the one small obstacle that printing presses were forbidden in the colony. The solution was the creation of the Royal Press, on 13 May 1808, the Prince Regent’s birthday.43 In addition to official documents, the Royal Press was allowed to print other works, and books. All the new publications, however, were subjected to restrictions. The directors were required to examine everything sent for publication and to exclude all documents and books whose content contradicted the government, religion or public morality. Thus, from the outset there was censorship to protect the fragile stability of the Portuguese Crown.44
The Royal Press was behind schedule from the day it was founded. To give an idea of the amount it had to process, by 1822, the year of Brazil’s Independence, it had published no fewer than 1,427 official documents45 and 720 titles – pamphlets, brochures, sermons, prospectuses, scientific works, literary works, translations of French and English texts on agriculture, political economy and philosophy, plays, operas, novels, poetry, children’s literature – a little of everything, with the only condition that it had first been examined by the censors. In addition, at every anniversary, funeral or royal birthday, reams of obsequious commentaries were produced.
The Royal Press published Brazil’s first periodical: the Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, which was launched on Saturday, 10 September 1808.46 From then on, there were two weekly editions, on Sundays and Wednesdays. As an official government publication, the journal was edited by friar Tibúrcio José da Rocha, an employee of the Ministry for War and Overseas Affairs, and never disguised its role as ‘propaganda for the state’. It was used to describe the activities of the monarchy and promote its image. Content was restricted to reporting official undertakings, praising the royal family, and reproducing articles from European newspapers. By 1814 the Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro was commenting on the war in Europe, with special attention to the victories over Napoleon. Such articles, first published abroad, referred to the French as ‘the plague that assailed Europe’ and to Dom João’s departure as ‘the wisest measure taken’.47
Among those who most objected to the periodical’s submissive editorial policy was the journalist Hipólito José da Costa Pereira Furtado, who commented acidly: ‘the fine-quality paper used on such poor material would be better employed for wrapping butter’. Hipólito, who was Brazilian and had been the director of the Royal Press in Lisbon, had become an enemy of the Portuguese government after being accused of being a Mason and imprisoned by the Inquisition between 1802 and 1804. He then escaped to London where he set up his own newspaper, the Correio Braziliense, three months before the first edition of the Gazeta was published in Rio de Janeiro. The Correio, which he published until 1822, was well informed, hard-hitting and free from censorship. In it Hipólito published news, analytical commentaries and criticism of the political events of the time. Although the periodical was banned from entering Brazil, copies were smuggled in and secretly read in the captaincies.
Between 1808 and 1810 the government concentrated on administrative measures. This also involved bringing ‘civilization’ to the colony, a project that began to accelerate after 1811. The first of such measures had been the establishment of Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Garden in 1808, modelled on that of the Paço da Ajuda in Lisbon where samples were collected and botanical experiments conducted. Its Brazilian counterpart, located in the public park on the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas,48 was created the same year. The area was designated by the Crown for the acclimatization and display of spices and plants ‘of exotic origin’. These included black pepper, red pepper, cloves, camphor, cinnamon and nutmeg, as well as fruits including breadfruit, sugar apples, mangoes, jackfruit, rose apples49 and star fruit.50 The first Royal Palm (Oreodoxa oleracea) was imported from the Antilles and planted by the Prince Regent himself. The colony’s first tea plantation was established in the gardens in 1810 with plants brought from Macau, accompanied by a group of two hundred Chinese to administer their cultivation. In 1819 the park on the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas was annexed to the Royal Museum, which had been founded on 6 June 1808, and was opened to the public under the name of the Royal Botanical Gardens.51
In 1816 the Royal School of Sciences and Ar
ts was inaugurated at the Royal Museum with the objective of ‘promoting botanical and zoological studies at the location’.52 Since the museum had no collection, Dom João donated some of his personal possessions, including paintings, engravings, stones, indigenous artefacts and stuffed animals, all of which gave the place the appearance of ‘an old curiosity shop’. Perhaps the most significant of all these measures was the creation of the Royal Library. It had taken three journeys to transport the priceless personal library of the Bragança family – abandoned in the streets of Lisbon during the chaos of the departure – to Rio de Janeiro. It was opened to the public in 1814.53
In order to sustain the presence of the court apparatus, with the government departments and civil servants in tow, the inhabitants of the colony paid a heavy price. Half of the money circulating in Portugal and the 80 million cruzados in gold and diamonds loaded into the royal chests in Lisbon were just a drop in the ocean. The Banco do Brasil alone funded almost all the expenses of the royal family, the law courts, the payroll and the pensions.54 As the taxes became more onerous, resentment in the colony grew. Nor did the royal household trouble to disguise how it squandered its wealth. The royal larders became symbolic of royal dissipation. An example is the daily consumption of the nursery of the Infante Dom Sebastião, Dom João’s grandson: three chickens, 10 lbs of beef, half a pound of ham, 2 lbs of sausages, 6 lbs of pork, 5 lbs of bread, half a pound of butter, two bottles of wine, a pound of candles, as well as sugar, coffee, pastry, fruit, vegetables, olive oil and other seasonings.55 Throughout the year of 1818 records show that 620 fowl per day were consumed in the Royal Palace.56
Although the presence of the court brought undoubted political benefits to Brazil, the price it had to pay was extremely high. As the government machine acquired increasingly gigantic proportions, so did the taxes needed to maintain it.57 Although the measures the Portuguese monarchy took while based in Rio de Janeiro were largely self-serving, those were years of political and administrative growth that set the course for the colony. It was a course that was both unpredictable and irreversible. And while neither entirely European nor exactly an empire, Portuguese America was gradually abandoning the status of a colony.
A KING IN BRAZIL
It had been six years since Dom João had arrived in the tropics. The colony had freed him of his gout and distanced him from the complex game of European politics, which, even with the defeat of Napoleon, was still plagued by confrontations and territorial disputes. This was the period of the Holy Alliance when, between 1814 and 1815, Russia, Austria and Prussia came together at the Congress of Vienna. During these great diplomatic meetings, which took place after Napoleon’s defeat, the restoration of the pre-revolutionary monarchies and the collective restructuring of Europe were negotiated. Despite the prospects for pacification and the return of the ancien régime states, Dom João remained hesitant. To his credit, however, the decision to maintain the court in Brazil permanently altered the face of Rio de Janeiro. The tropical city was no longer recognizable, no longer the ‘bogus Lisbon, vulgar and lawless’58 that had welcomed the Prince Regent and his entourage. The population of Rio de Janeiro had grown by 50 per cent, from around 60,000 inhabitants to 90,000,59 and ‘people of every race, colour and conceivable culture’ now filled its streets.60
To the foreign visitor, however, the capital of Brazil was still mean and shabby. John Luccock61 described it as ‘one of the dirtiest congregations of human beings under the sun’. Despite the presence of the royal court, the routine of a sleepy provincial town continued. And life at the Royal Palace was no exception: after lunch, the Prince Regent would retire to the cool of the drawing room, where the peace and quiet was only broken by the squealing infantes teasing the caged monkeys, and otherwise annoying the dogs, parrots, macaws and cockatoos.62
There is a probably exaggerated story that is often told about Dom João. After being bitten by a tick he started to bathe in the sea on his doctor’s orders, but as the swelling increased and made it difficult for him to walk, he began to travel short distances in a chair, carried by his slaves on their shoulders.63 Overnight this new mode of transport became all the rage in the ‘elegant’ streets near the Paço – the Rua Direita and the Rua do Ouvidor. More practically, for short distances, mule or ox-drawn carts with curtains were the most frequently used form of transport, guided by a slave on foot; for longer journeys, carriages drawn by one or two pairs of horses.64 It was also possible (‘with all decency’) to hire slaves to drive the vehicles. But all of these means of transport were expensive and the quality was deplorable. In 1819 the Prussian Theodor von Leithold65 compared them to ‘market carts’.66
The city offered almost no recreational facilities nor even the most basic requirements for an urban society. The Passeio Público, the public gardens built in the district of Lapa between 1779 and 1783, were for many years one of the only attractions in the city. Bullfighting was also a popular form of entertainment. Von Leithold attended one of the fights that took place in the Campo de Santana:67 ‘The Portuguese, Brazilians, mulattoes and blacks booed all the way through; the mangey bull, whose wrath a few costumed figures sought to provoke with their red capes, remained calm.’68 The Real Teatro de São João, founded in 1813, offered further entertainment, and for ten years remained the only theatre in the city. As for music, Dom João was clever at combining local talent with artists visiting from abroad. He surrounded himself with professional artists such as the mestizo composer José Maurício,69 who until 1810 was in charge of all sacred and profane music at the court, where – entirely without competition – he was affectionately known as the ‘Brazilian Mozart’.70 In 1811, however, he was overshadowed by the arrival of the composer Marcos Antônio Portugal,71 a musician accustomed to the tastes of the court. Marcos Antônio Portugal had studied in Italy and been the conductor at the São Carlos opera house in Lisbon. The position grew: by 1815, the Royal Chapel boasted fifty singers, both domestic and international.
The Fazenda Santa Cruz,72 owned by the monarchy, was sixty kilometres outside the city, and as famous for its ‘production’ of musicians, all of whom were of African descent, as it was for its agricultural produce. The enslaved on this estate, in addition to working in the fields, were taught to sing and play musical instruments. As their fame increased, the estate became known as the Conservatório de Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz Conservatory). Although the estate had been in decline since the expulsion of the Jesuits, the music teachers73 had continued their work, paving the way for the transformation the school was to undergo with the arrival of the royal court.
In 1817 the building was remodelled, and the chapel was redecorated to accommodate orchestral and choir performances. And then the Palace of Santa Cruz officially became the royal summer residence, with all the solemnities befitting its new status. The enslaved musicians spent much time studying music theory and practising on their instruments, under the supervision of none other than José Maurício himself. The Prince Regent began the custom of incorporating musicians from Santa Cruz into the military band, the orchestra at the Palace of São Cristóvão, and into the choir of the Royal Chapel. The instruments included strings (violins, violas and cellos), woodwind (clarinets, oboes, flutes and bassoons), brass (trumpets and trombones), as well as drums, soprano clarinets and ebony piccolos. They performed patriotic marches, modinhas, waltzes and quadrilles. They also presented operas. Dom João, who was a great lover of music, appeared at the theatre for gala performances, where he would fall asleep in the royal box. When he woke with a start he would turn to the faithful chamberlain at his side and ask: ‘Have the rascals got married yet?’74
The new capital presented a number of very original problems. Insects were a constant topic among travellers, who described the annoyances of those ‘little monsters’ with long legs: ‘Because of them, anyone who lives in Brazil calls the country the land of the slaps. Because in order to defend ourselves against the mosquitoes at night, we have to continually slap ourselv
es left and right.’ It was not just the mosquitoes they complained about. Rats, burrowers, cockroaches, vermin that crawled into the skin between the toes, and dogs that barked throughout the night, all of them were the dread of foreigners.
Other ‘problems’ specific to Brazil were those generated by the presence of Brazilians of African descent and the still numerous indigenous groups spread throughout the colony. For example, on 13 May 1808 the Prince Regent signed a royal decree ordering the governor of Minas Gerais to attack a cannibal group of Indians, the Botocudo.75 The decree referred to the Indians as barbarians and cannibals who committed atrocious acts, ‘not infrequently murdering Portuguese and peaceable Indians, wounding them and then sucking the blood from the wounds, often tearing up the bodies and eating the dreadful remains’. Dom João ordered the summary elimination of the group in the name of ‘civilization’, to protect a society that was ‘meek’ and ‘peaceable’. There was also a great deal of fear regarding possible slave rebellions, a phenomenon that became known as ‘Haitisim’ in reference to the successful slave revolution in Haiti. This was a source of terror (among the elites) and of hope (among the enslaved). It is no wonder the elites vilified the Africans and their customs merely to justify holding them captive. The Marquis of Borba left a revealing statement, expressing the general opinion of the court: ‘There is nothing so terrible as these blacks […] This [town] is an infamous Babylon …’76
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