Brazil

by Heloisa Maria Murgel Starling

  Dom Pedro, who now took on the hopes and ambitions for the future of Brazil, was twenty-two. In his last documented conversation with his father the king, it was clear as they parted that their lack of intimacy was surpassed only by the distance between them. There they were, face to face, the hesitant King Dom João VI and the wilful regent, Dom Pedro. It was on 24 April and in two days ‘el-rei’ would finally embark with the rest of the family back to Portugal. The regent was then summoned to his father’s room, where the famous discussion of very few words took place. Our only source for what the king said on the occasion is a letter written by the prince to the king the following year: ‘I still recall and will always recall what Your Majesty said to me in your room two days before your departure: Pedro, if Brazil breaks away, better it be by your hand, with the respect you have for me, than by the hand of one of these adventurers.’ It is impossible to say whether these words, endlessly repeated in the official version of Brazilian history books, were actually spoken. Memory is always tricky, and whether or not Dom João said that to Dom Pedro, and whether or not Dom Pedro later recalled the conversation, is open to debate. What we do know is that in his decree of 22 April 1821, King Dom João VI uses the word ‘saudade’ – ‘longing’ – a sentimental word of many meanings in the Portuguese language: ‘It has become indispensable in order to provide for the government and administration of this Kingdom of Brazil, which I leave with such strong feelings of saudade, that I return to Portugal …’18

  It is said that when he left, on 26 April 1821, Dom João was overcome with such a jolt of sadness that, slumped in his bergère, the poor man barely spoke. He proposed a short stop in Salvador on the pretext of giving the order that the new government must be obeyed. But this time, even the king’s adviser, the Count of Palmela, thought enough was enough. It was better to clean out the public coffers and carefully transport the treasury arks and the safes from the Banco do Brasil. The king alone carried with him over 60 million cruzados in minted gold and in bars. Not to mention the diamonds stored in the fortified houses of the Banco do Brasil. In the streets, the people, who once again followed the exodus of the Portuguese court, came up with satirical poems: ‘With eyes a-sparkle/and steps so light/we board the ship/with wealth in sight.’

  DOM PEDRO’S RETURN

  While Dom João VI and his retinue travelled back to Portugal, the new constitutional assembly in Lisbon debated the articles pertaining to the monarchy. An indication of the importance of the king’s return was their order to resuscitate the Regimento de Entradas em Lisboa, the historical ceremony devised to celebrate the return of Dom Manuel I on 30 August 1502. The Courts intended to invest the monarchy once again with the aura of the kings from the era of the Great Discoveries. As part of the ceremony, King Dom João VI was handed the keys to the city.

  Although the king was received with pomp and circumstance, he was in no doubt as to where real power now lay. Before disembarking on 4 July, he received delegations from the regency and the Courts. In a display of strength, the latter forbade the arrival of eleven of the king’s advisers, who were considered ‘dangerous’. These included the Count of Palmela, the minister Tomás de Vilanova Portugal and Joaquim José de Azevedo, the Viscount of Rio Seco, all of whom were sent back to Brazil. In this ongoing tug of war it was the vintistas,19 as the Portuguese revolutionaries were known, who won. On the very same day, the king was obliged to appoint a new Cabinet, which replaced the regency; and to become a constitutional monarch, which changed his political status. But if anyone believed the symbolism of the monarchy could be diminished, they were mistaken. The entrance of the sovereign into Lisbon, accompanied by the queen and the Infante Dom Miguel, was heralded as a triumphal event and on 5 July, although hostage to circumstances, the monarch was received in Lisbon as the greatest trophy of Portugal’s victory.

  Although Dom João VI accepted the new situation, Carlota Joaquina did not. She was radically opposed to the revolution and the attack on royal prerogative. She was the only member of the royal family who refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the new Constitution in 1822. She was confined to the Palácio do Ramalhão in Sintra,20 but never lost her nerve. She wrote to her husband from the palace, decrying those who ‘surrounded and tricked’ him. Meanwhile, although he remained at a distance in Brazil, Dom Pedro was not his father’s puppet. He had his own desires. Thus, at first he became an easy target for the local elites, who, fearful of the progress of the revolution in Portugal, were trying to preserve their societal advantages.21

  But the new regent soon rolled up his shirtsleeves and got down to work, transitioning from the wings to centre stage. In its first proclamation, which seems to have been written by the Conde dos Arcos, the interim government approved a series of reforms in education, agriculture and commerce, and warned that it expected ‘strict adherence to the laws’ and ‘constant vigilance’. The practical effect of the measures may have been small, but they achieved what the new regent intended: to make his presence felt. It was a time of caution; no one yet knew what the consequences of the events in Portugal would be. The Courts in Lisbon now proposed replacing the concept of two autonomous kingdoms governed by one monarch with that of a single kingdom, divided into two parts: European and American.

  The Courts were in a hurry to see their plans implemented and requested that a Brazilian delegation be sent to Portugal. The first reaction came as a pleasant surprise. Not only did Rio de Janeiro and Bahia – the former capitals of the viceroyalty – enthusiastically support constitutionalism, but even the northern province of Pará, which was administered separately from the rest of the colony, followed suit. The Liberal Revolution was initially welcomed in Brazil as part of the struggle for freedom against the despotism of the ancien régime. Brazilians were not yet aware of the strength of the movement to recolonize the country – the Portuguese elites were only in favour of constitutionalism in Brazil if it were to be subordinated to their own.

  But at the outset the colony’s reaction was positive and Brazil began the process of electing its deputies to the Courts. Instructions issued on 22 November of the previous year were clear: all citizens of the empire were considered eligible with the exception of state counsellors and employees of the royal court. There was to be one deputy for every 30,000 inhabitants. In the case of Brazil, governing assemblies loyal to the revolution were to be installed in the various captaincies, which were from then on to be known as provinces.22 Population figures were based on the numbers for 1808, the year of the court’s arrival, when it was estimated at 2,323,386 inhabitants. Thus, the country had the right to elect seventy-seven deputies (although in fact only forty-six attended the sessions). Portugal had the right to one hundred deputies, Madeira and the Azores to nine, and the African and Asian possessions to seven (Cape Verde, Bissau and Cacheu; Angola and Benguela; São Tomé and Príncipe; Mozambique; Goa; Macau, Timor and Solor).23

  The deputies from Pernambuco were the first arrive in Lisbon, on 29 August 1821. Among them were Muniz Tavares24 and Araújo Lima.25 The delegations from Rio de Janeiro and Bahia also included important Brazilian figures – in the former the future Marquis of Paranaguá,26 and in the latter Cipriano Barata de Almeida27 and Francisco Agostinho Gomes.28 Members of the São Paulo29 delegation, however, were the only ones to have done their homework. They brought a list of explicit instructions, which bore the hallmark of José Bonifácio30 and the subjects that concerned him most: the abolition of slavery and the catechization of the Indians. The São Paulo delegates included Antônio Carlos Ribeiro de Andrada Machado e Silva (perhaps the most talented of José Bonifácio’s brothers). The Andrada Machado e Silva brothers were the sons of a rich and well-connected merchant from Santos. José Bonifácio was a well-known intellectual and statesman. He had spent many years in Portugal where he had studied and been a professor at Coimbra, and he had held important administrative posts. The document the São Paulo delegation brought with them also stipulated that the two kingdoms be represented by
the same number of deputies and that the seat of the monarchy alternate between the two. But it received little attention. The Courts had been in session since January 1821 and one of their first measures had been the subordination of local governments to Lisbon and the revocation of the trade agreements signed during King Dom João VI’s reign. The lack of agreement between Portugal and Brazil was all too clear from the outset, and the rift between the two was only to be widened by the intransigence of the Courts. Those who had travelled to Portugal in the hope of participating in a debate about principles of equality before the law and the rights of Brazil were frustrated: for many of the Portuguese deputies the colony was nothing more than ‘a land of monkeys, bananas and little Negroes harvested from the coast of Africa’.31

  In Brazil the situation was equally unstable. Whereas in Pernambuco and Bahia the groups in power supported Portugal’s policy, in Rio de Janeiro they were divided into two – the Conservatives, linked to José Bonifácio, and the radicals, who were led by Joaquim Gonçalves Ledo.32 Dom Pedro, now the new Prince Regent, oscillated between attending to local concerns and loyalty to his father. In a display of filial devotion, he sent letters to the king in which he expressed affection and concealed his doubts: ‘My daughter asks after her grandfather every day, she’s already walking; my son is now holding his head up and is larger and stronger.’33 Dom Pedro faced many difficulties, not least finding ways of solving the financial difficulties he had inherited. The problem had been caused by the hurried departure of the royal family and was further aggravated by the appalling situation of the Banco do Brasil, once again on the verge of bankruptcy.

  Dom Pedro’s notoriety as a seducer also dates from this time. In less prudent letters to his father he mentioned his extramarital indiscretions in the palace and how his behaviour had set the servants’ tongues wagging. The prince was equally romantic about his political participation, and was anxious for an important role in imperial politics. Perhaps this is the reason why he was infected by the nationalist fever that began to take hold of most of the Brazilian deputies in Portugal, a fever that had made its way back to Brazil. This change in attitude had been provoked by the Portuguese Courts: on 13 July 1821 they established the provisional assemblies that proceeded to revoke the laws of King João’s reign, including that which appointed his son Dom Pedro as head of the ‘general government and entire administration of the Kingdom of Brazil’. Between late September and October 1821 a number of measures issued by the Portuguese Courts made their real intentions clear: to transfer Brazil’s main government departments to Lisbon. New contingents of troops were sent to Rio de Janeiro, and finally, on 29 September, a decree was signed demanding the Prince Regent’s return to Portugal. Initially Dom Pedro replied that he would respect the order and that he ‘no longer wanted to influence events in Brazil’.34 But the Courts’ decrees came as a shock to Brazilian politicians and Dom Pedro was not to keep to his word.

  The Courts also determined that Brazil’s provinces be transformed into Portuguese overseas provinces, thus Rio de Janeiro would no longer be at the centre of a unified Brazil. Any requirement for the Prince Regent to remain in Brazil was nullified. On 14 December 1821, Don Pedro wrote to his father: ‘the publication of the decrees caused great shock among Brazilians to the point that they have taken to the streets saying: if the constitution is doing us harm then it can go to the devil.’ The prince hurriedly added that he would unquestioningly respect the decrees but, at the same time, would remain ‘sensible’ if he were ‘obliged by the people not to entirely fulfil such sovereign instructions’.35 There was pressure from every side. If he left, Brazil would declare independence; if he stayed, it would remain united, but would no longer accept orders from the Portuguese Courts. In the last of his letters to his father in 1821, Dom Pedro wrote, ‘before the opinion [in favour of independence] was not general, but now it is very deep-rooted’.

  The year 1822 began with few certainties and many doubts. The Brazilian party was doing everything it could to make sure the prince remained in Brazil, as were the radical groups, some of which started publishing periodicals whose entire focus was to persuade him to stay. Although previously there had been conflict, for the prince to remain in Brazil was now the unanimous position of all parties. But as communications took two months to arrive from Lisbon, Dom Pedro remained cautious. He too suffered from the Bragança family’s infamous indecisiveness. His wife, Princess Leopoldina, decided to add to the pressure; she found him ‘not as positively decided as I would wish’.36

  With time, the princess was to become one of the great influences favouring Brazil’s emancipation from Portugal and Dom Pedro’s disobedience to the Courts; she seemed apprehensive of Portuguese constitutionalism and the corrosion of monarchical power. The Brazilian party needed to sway Dom Pedro with a symbolic act, the natural procedure of any person or group preparing an historical event. The Clube da Resistência (Resistance Club) was founded in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Minas Gerais on 9 December 1821 following the arrival of the decrees from Portugal ordering Dom Pedro to return to Lisbon immediately. The leader of the Brazilian party, Gonçalves Ledo, suggested that the president of the Senate, José Clemente Pereira, sound out Dom Pedro as to how he would react to a formal request to stay. Then, on 1 January 1822, José Bonifácio sent the regent a letter formally petitioning him to remain and not to ‘become the slave of a small number of destroyers’.37 José Bonifácio, who had been vice-president of the Provisional Junta of São Paulo since June 1821, was exerting increasing influence over the regent.

  On 9 January, at a reception for the Senate held at the Royal Palace, Dom Pedro was handed a formal petition with over eight thousand signatures asking him not to leave for Portugal. The objective was clear: to guarantee the presence of the heir to the throne in Brazil, in an attempt to attenuate the wave of colonialist sentiment enveloping Portugal. It was on this occasion that Dom Pedro allegedly uttered his famous words, ‘Tell the people I will stay.’38 Whether he actually spoke them or not is in doubt. A second declaration was annexed to the minutes. According to the first rendering, the prince in fact replied: ‘Convinced that the presence of my person in Brazil is in the interest of the good of the entire Portuguese nation, and knowing that it is the wish of some of the provinces, I shall postpone my departure until the Courts and my August Father and Lord deliberate in this regard, in full knowledge of the circumstances that have occurred’. In a postscript, however, the document states that these were not the regent’s exact words, and that they should be replaced with the following: ‘As it is for the good of all and for the general happiness of the nation, I am ready. Tell the people I will stay.’39 Whether these last words were spoken or not, the prince then proceeded to the palace balcony and declared: ‘And now, all I can recommend is union and tranquillity.’ Interestingly enough, it is precisely the phrase ‘I will stay’ that does not appear in the Senate records for the next day, 10 January, which state that on the previous day pronouncements had been published ‘with considerable alterations to the words’, motivated by the ‘joy that took hold of all those in the audience room’.40 Politics often is subject to different versions of events – in this particular case, the most resonating phrase has remained. At any rate, let us stick with the second declaration, since Dom Pedro’s 16 February letter to the Portuguese Courts declared his intention to stay put, and that Brazil wanted ‘to be treated as a brother, not as a son; a sovereign with Portugal, not a subject; independent […] as she is, and nothing less.’

  Despite the uncompromising terms of the letter, it is important to remember that the majority of the Brazilian elite still wanted to stay with Portugal, as long as Brazil could preserve the autonomy it had achieved. This was the position of the conservative administration surrounding José Bonifácio, which was seeking a moderate solution. These conservatives were opposed by radical groups in favour of a new form of representation, perhaps even republican. Despite the differences between the factions, the n
ew direction was self-evident: the old order would not return. It was, however, a two-way process, resulting from events both inside Brazil and abroad: on the one hand the intransigence of the Portuguese Courts and on the other the growing awareness in Brazil that independence was now the only available course. Some even think that, at this point, Portugal actually wanted to be rid of Brazil and its provocations. The fact of the matter is that incidents flared up on both sides of the Atlantic in the short period between Dom Pedro’s symbolic promise to stay and his famous declaration of independence on 7 September on the banks of the Ipiranga river.

  INDEPENDENT, SORT OF

  It is possible to speculate that, without the policies of the Courts, pro-independence sentiment would have taken much longer to emerge in Brazil. Bahia had still not forgiven Rio de Janeiro for taking its place as capital of the viceroyalty and, while the northern provinces continued to clamour for a capital in the region, in the south there was a faction demanding that it be transferred to São Paulo. Nonetheless, there is nothing like a common enemy from the outside to bring adversaries together. Dom Pedro, ever more conscious of his role, declared he was ‘tired of the insolence’,41 and public opinion had begun to assimilate the notion of independence. The Brazilian Army – called Exército de 1a Linha (1st Line Army) – was established in response to the Portuguese troops having refused to swear loyalty to Dom Pedro. A new ministry was also formed. Among the decrees issued by the new government was one that forbade the expedition led by Francisco Maximiliano e Sousa to disembark in Rio de Janeiro on 9 March. He had been sent by Portugal to take Dom Pedro back to Lisbon, to be escorted by a squadron like the one that had sailed with his father.