Brazil
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In foreign policy the monarch maintained his father’s expansionist approach. The intention was to extend Brazil’s southern frontiers to the banks of the River Plate. Brazil continued to wage war with Argentina for the control of Cisplatina. However, the emerging independence movement in the province was finally victorious, and the new nation of Uruguay was founded in 1825. Brazil and Argentina lost the war, resulting in very considerable financial losses for both.
Meanwhile the emperor’s turbulent private life continued. After Leopoldina died, Dom Pedro I was then unfaithful to Domitila. By 1827 he had decided to remarry, to choose a new wife from one of the courts of Europe. The love affair with Domitila dragged on for another three years, but the emperor was firmly decided. His search for a new empress, however, proved to be harder than he had thought because his reputation as a temperamental husband was by now common knowledge in Europe. After three years of searching he finally married Amelia of Leuchtenberg, Princess of Bavaria. She was seventeen years old and her beauty, it was said, greatly improved the emperor’s temper.
It became increasingly clear to local politicians that the emperor’s interests were limited to his private life and political developments in Portugal. He constantly attempted to interfere in Portuguese affairs, sending dispatches to Lisbon signed as ‘Dom Pedro IV’. He made no distinction between Brazilian finances and those of Portugal and his main concern appeared to be the question of the Portuguese succession. In 1827, when Dom Miguel I turned twenty-five, the legal age for assuming the regency, Dom Pedro I suggested his brother ascend the throne as provisional monarch to rule temporarily in his place. Dom Miguel, who had spent a long period in Austria, returned to Portugal in 1828, to the delight of his mother, Dona Carlota Joaquina, who saw in his return an opportunity to avenge past opponents. He was crowned king and his repressive reign began, during which many politicians were put to death and others fled the country.
By 1830 the situation in Brazil was reaching a critical point. Tension in Rio de Janeiro was exacerbated by a series of conflicts. From one side, the 1830 revolutions in Europe, which led to the fall of Charles X in France and the crowning of Louis-Philippe – the Citizen King who openly declared his sympathy for some of the ideas of the French Revolution – encouraged the Brazilian liberals to mobilize against the absolutist character of Dom Pedro I’s government. From the other side, the murder of the journalist Libero Badaró in São Paulo, on 20 November, led to further anger on the part of the public and, above all, the press. Libero Badaró was an Italian who had settled in Brazil and become the owner of the opposition newspaper O Observador Constitucional, which argued that the imperial government was exercising a type of negligent authoritarianism. Articles exhorted Brazilians to break all links with any Portuguese monarch, including Dom Pedro himself. The rumour quickly spread that the man who had ordered the crime, a High Court judge named Cândido Japiaçu, had done so in collusion with the emperor. The liberal majority in the Chamber of Deputies confronted the government head-on, concluding the last session on 30 November with demands for constitutional reform.30
This was the mood of the country when Dom Pedro decided to visit Minas Gerais in an attempt to control the pro-federalist disturbances that had broken out there. Rumours were spreading that he was preparing an absolutist coup d’état and planning to shut down the Congress. On his return to Rio de Janeiro, on 11 March 1831, Dom Pedro received a mixed welcome. The Portuguese merchants organized festivities including bonfires, fireworks and flags flying the national colours. The liberals saw these celebrations as an affront to national dignity. Rioting broke out, known as the ‘Night of Bottles’, with the opponents hurling bottles at each other. The chaos in the streets – fighting, shouting insults, the destruction of property – lasted until the night of 16 March. While groups of liberals shouted ‘Long live the constitution, the Assembly and freedom of the press’, their opponents called on the emperor to become an absolute monarch. Historical documents include descriptions of Africans and Afro-Brazilians wearing jackets and hats with national ribbons. Order was restored on 17 March, but not for long.
The same day twenty-three deputies and one senator, Campos Vergueiro, drew up a formal document demanding that the emperor punish the Portuguese aggressors. The tension was such that Dom Pedro I’s appointment of a new Cabinet composed only of Brazilians and his nomination of a new superintendent of police had virtually no effect. The atmosphere at court and in the provinces was ‘electric’, in the words of John Armitage,31 with the newspapers pouring fuel on the fire. Even the moderates, who had previously attempted to calm things down, now joined in the general discontent. Putting their differences aside for the time being, the ‘moderate’ and ‘exalted’ liberals joined forces to overthrow the emperor. People in the streets took to using the same green and yellow ribbons that had been worn by the supporters of independence, while exalted liberals and republicans alike sported straw hats with a sempre-viva32 in their buttonholes.
On 25 March, the anniversary of the constitution, rebellion broke out in the streets of Rio de Janeiro. Dom Pedro I, who was watching a military parade in the Campo da Aclamação, was confronted by people shouting ‘Long live the constitutional emperor’. Public protests and tumult in the streets became a daily occurrence. But the straw that broke the camel’s back came on 5 April when Dom Pedro dismissed his Brazilian ministers for failing to control the riots and appointed new ones from his inner circle of supporters. The next day a crowd of over four thousand men gathered in the Campo da Aclamação – which was rapidly becoming the most popular location for public unrest – and proceeded to spread throughout the city streets. They were protesting the dismissal of the Cabinet and the appointment of a new one, whose members’ only qualification was their proximity to the emperor. There were shouts of ‘Long live the constitution’ and ‘Long live Brazilian independence’, as if these declarations were in fundamental opposition to the emperor. Rumours were rife. There were claims that constitutional guarantees had been suspended, that senators had been arrested, and even that some of the deputies had been killed. It was also rumoured that Dom Pedro I himself was planning a coup d’état, which only increased the tension and calls for a final break with the emperor.
In an effort to control the situation Dom Pedro I sent a manifesto to be read aloud in public, in which he declared himself to be a ‘devoted constitutionalist’ and gave his imperial word that nothing sinister had taken place. However, before the justice of the peace who was reading the declaration had finished, it was torn from his hands by protesters shouting ‘Death to the Emperor’ and ‘Long Live the Federation and the Republic’. The Brazilian politicians now made a further attempt to calm the situation: three justices of the peace were sent to the palace of São Cristóvão to request the deposed ministers’ reintegration. The sovereign refused, claiming his constitutional right. When they returned with the news of his refusal, the judges were greeted with shouts of ‘Death to the traitor!’ and ‘Citizens to arms!’33
Pressure became so intense that the emperor decided to play his last card: he abdicated in favour of his son. It was in fact the only way of quelling the revolt while guaranteeing the continuity of the monarchy in Brazil. At 3 o’clock in the morning on 7 April the emperor’s abdication was read out in public. The news was greeted ecstatically. Patriotic songs and civic hymns were sung amid cries of ‘Pedro II, constitutional emperor of Brazil!’ Dom Pedro I’s last act was to appoint a tutor for his children who would remain in Brazil. Paradoxical as it may seem, he chose his old friend José Bonifácio, whom he had once exiled to France.
It turned out that Dom Pedro I was better at abdication than at ruling. Supercilious, he declared the situation was irrevocable: ‘Everything is over between me and Brazil. Forever.’ He returned to Portugal with his wife, assuming his previous title with the added words ‘perpetual defender of Brazil’. He now put all his energies into fighting for the right of his daughter, Dona Maria da Glória, to succeed to th
e Portuguese throne.
In Brazil the atmosphere was one of euphoria. The abdication was seen as foundational, as an inauguration. Many considered it an exemplary revolution, because there had been no bloodshed. Others called it ‘the regeneration of Brazil’. An entire historical memory was fabricated regarding the abdication, as if it represented a new era: one of real independence.34 The date of 7 April became more symbolically important than that of 7 September, in terms of consecrating the public as actors in the political arena and the group of ‘exalted liberals’ who had managed – through informal means – to give voice to the country’s citizens.
Nonetheless, once again the seeds had been sown for future discord. The new monarch was not yet six years old and the years to come were to see a series of regencies. Other people would have to govern in young Dom Pedro II’s name, until he reached ‘adulthood’. Further attempts at a citizens’ federation were to be made and further uprisings were to occur. But now the noise was like an echo: the echo of voices from the other provinces of Brazil.
10
Regencies, or the Sound of Silence
It is said that the sound of silence can be deafening. The period of the regencies, which began in Brazil with the abdication of Pedro I in 1831, is a case in point. Brazil is an enormous country with vast, disparate regions that were virtually unknown to the court. From a distance they appeared settled and peaceful, and the impression was that this was how they would always remain. The political emancipation of 1822 was consolidated around the court in Rio de Janeiro, through the symbol of the monarchy and the idea of national unity. But the desire for autonomy in the provinces was strong. After the break with Lisbon, the unity imposed during the colonial period weakened. Two incompatible movements emerged: the centralizing impulse of the court and the desire for self-government in the provinces.1
The question was where the centre of sovereignty would be: in the provinces (and this would require a new constitutional pact) or in Rio de Janeiro. Many of the provinces rejected the centralization integral to independence; acceptance was not peaceful and unanimous. Pernambuco and Bahia, for example, were fully prepared to govern themselves. Although independence had established national unity around the figure of the emperor – ‘that majestic fundament of social architecture, from the River Plate to the River Amazon’ in the words of José Bonifácio – the struggle for federation would shake the country during the period of the regencies. After Dom Pedro I’s abdication the instability increased. The situation was even more complicated because at the time of Dom Pedro’s abdication, his son, Prince Pedro II, was just five years and four months old. Because he was so young, it was decided that he should live isolated in the palace of São Cristóvão, along with his two sisters – Francisca (Chica) and Januária. The new Prince Regent would only be able to take over the government when he reached the age of eighteen. That is why the ‘depository of the hopes and aspirations of the nation’ was to be carefully guarded. Thus a political vacuum was created that was to have serious consequences. On the one hand, the immediate practical and bureaucratic problem was solved by appointing Brazilian politicians to govern as regents in a succession of four regencies. Two of these were composed of a council of three (known as the ‘triple regencies’) and the other two of just one (known as the ‘single regencies’). But, on the other hand, with no emperor ruling the country, the question of succession inflamed the provinces, which began to contest the legitimacy of the regents whose governments were seen as giving too much priority to Rio de Janeiro and the court. And the provinces made themselves heard, loud and clear.
First there was a general debate over the excessive political and administrative centralization imposed by Rio de Janeiro. Ideas of forming a federation and a republic were aired. And the debate was not restricted to parliament. A series of rebellions occurred in the provinces that, despite their different characteristics, had one thing in common: the demand for autonomy. Isolated from the centre of power and rejecting the direction Brazil had taken under Dom Pedro I, new leaders appeared with a fresh agenda for the country. Revolts like the Cabanagem in Pará, the Balaiada in Maranhão, the Sabinada in Bahia and the Guerra dos Farrapos in Rio Grande do Sul, as we shall see, revealed the potential danger, should the rebels unite behind a single cause.
Almost none of these uprisings were intended to overthrow the monarchy. In general they expressed impatience for the new emperor, Pedro II, to be crowned. But while the young prince was growing up, demands for autonomy from the provinces also grew. The new regents were under pressure to develop a political structure representing provincial interests, without endangering territorial unity or the centralized monarchy. With so much at stake, the period of the regencies was the most dynamic of the empire in terms of new political projects, proposals and forms of government. One wonders whether the palace, with its child monarch, had seemingly decreased in size, or whether the expansive four corners of the country had become increasingly distant. At any rate, Joaquim Nabuco2 was later to comment: ‘In Brazil the regency was, in fact, the republic. A provisional republic.’
THE CHILD EMPEROR AND THE REGENCIES
As an institution, the regency was foreseen in the constitution and was thus the most legitimate means of maintaining continuity in light of the abrupt departure of the emperor, whose reign had lasted for fewer than ten years. Thus, when the Senate received the official news of Dom Pedro I’s abdication they immediately elected a provisional regency made up of three senators: Francisco de Lima e Silva (a military officer with a long political career); Nicolau Pereira de Campos Vergueiro (a lawyer who had studied at Coimbra, a member of the Paulista group connected to the Andrada family, and now an influential politician); and José Joaquim Carneiro de Campos (the Marquis of Caravelas, who had also studied at Coimbra and was one of the signatories of the 1824 Constitution; he had succeeded José Bonifácio as Minister of Foreign Trade). The regents held opposing opinions, both in relation to groups they supported and in terms of politics: Francisco de Lima e Silva was considered a liberal, in favour of federalism; José Joaquim Carneiro de Campos and Nicolau Pereira de Campos Vergueiro were conservative, the latter considered a diehard centralist.
The government needed to take strong measures to appease the provinces as soon as possible. The regents acted fast, restoring the ministers dismissed by Dom Pedro I to their posts, summoning a Legislative Assembly to write a new body of laws, granting amnesty to all political prisoners and dismissing foreigners from the army, those deemed ‘suspect and unruly’. To guarantee peace and demonstrate their goodwill, the regents drew up a manifesto calling for order and laying out new political and administrative measures. Even so, in Rio de Janeiro and some of the provinces, notably Bahia and Pernambuco, there were demonstrations against the Portuguese restoration party, which by then was advocating the return of the monarch.
Meanwhile, to promote the symbolic force of the young emperor, the Legislative Assembly acclaimed him Emperor of Brazil on April 9, just two days after the abdication. Once again the French artist Jean-Baptiste Debret was summoned to ‘immortalize’ the occasion, which was in reality no more than political expediency. The child was so small that when he was introduced from the balcony of the palace he had to stand on a chair so the crowd could see him waving his handkerchief. The political elite had now resorted to displaying the country’s future stability incarnate in the form of the child monarch.
In appointing José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva as young Pedro II’s tutor, Dom Pedro I recognized the political maturity and intellectual qualities of his one-time friend, who had dared to confront Dom Pedro I during the 1823 Constituent Assembly. It was a dramatic moment and the former monarch knew he might never see his children again. To ensure their privacy and protect them from prevailing political unrest, the three royal children – the last members of the royal family remaining in Brazil – were taken to the São Cristóvão palace in Boa Vista, to keep them at a safe distance from the bustling capital centr
e. At the palace, the children’s days were tedious, strictly scheduled with very few visitors allowed, and many lessons to be studied and learned. The future emperor’s education was an absolute priority. He had to be kept in a calm environment, while outside the city was in a state of turmoil. There was even a suggestion that the young monarch should be taken to São Paulo, but it was rejected on the grounds that if he travelled he would attract unwanted attention.3
Dom Pedro I finally left Brazil on 13 April 1831, and his departure – ‘the fall of the tyrant’ – was celebrated in the streets. Meanwhile, although the young prince’s authority was seriously endangered by the general unrest – uprisings and revolts throughout the country – he was nonetheless used as the mainstay of the regency’s rule. The first announcements of the ‘bloodless revolution’ – the term used to refer to the abdication – referred to a constitutional monarch who would free the country from the authoritarianism of Portugal: ‘Citizens! We now have a homeland; we have a monarch who is the symbol of our union, of the integrity of the empire who, taught by us, is receiving, almost from the cradle, the first lessons in American freedom, and learning to love Brazil, the country that gave him birth …’4
The political atmosphere was complex, with the main newspapers completely divided. In 1833 a journal called Dom Pedro I was founded, which defended the restoration, and a few months later another, called Dom Pedro II, which advocated the union of all parties against the return of the Portuguese monarch. The young emperor’s name was already being used to defend a cause about which he understood nothing.
Little is known about the childhood of Brazil’s second emperor. We have just a few portraits, and descriptions by his mediocre teachers of the monotonous daily routine of the boy and his sisters. In a letter of 8 May 1833 he wrote to his sister Dona Maria da Glória, now Queen of Portugal: