3. Rio da Prata, the River Plate.
4. When Dom Pedro returned to Portugal he fought a war against his brother Dom Miguel, who had seized the throne with the aid of the Absolutist Party. Dom Miguel and his supporters were finally defeated in 1834, and Maria, Dom Pedro’s daughter, reigned as Maria II until her death in 1853.
5. See the document ‘Descripção do Edificio construido para a solemnidade da coroação e sagração de S. M. O Imperador O Senhor D. Pero II’, Publicações do Arquivo Nacional, 1925.
6. See the edition of 15 July 1841 of the Jornal do Commercio.
7. The Guianan cock of the rock (Rupicola rupicola), a species of South American passerine.
8. Manual de acompanhamento do Imperador no dia de seu aniversário e aclamação. Thypografia Nacional, 1841.
9. The custom of kissing the king’s hand came from Portugal, representing the servile character of the court with the gesture of bowing to the monarch. Dom João had incorporated it into the Brazilian ritual: every night – with the exception of Sundays and holidays – at eight o’clock, he received the public in the Palace of São Cristóvão.
10. Paulo Barbosa worked as the imperial steward until his death in 1868.
11. Letters from Dom Pedro II to Paulo Barbosa, Biblioteca Nacional, 26 February 1863.
12. 3,555 contos de réis, the equivalent of 3,555,000 réis.
13. Alencastro, ‘L’Empire du Brésil’, p. 502.
14. Manolo Fiorentino, Em costas negras. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2008.
15. Luiz Felipe de Alencastro, Le Commerce des vivants: traites d’esclaves er ‘pax lusitana’ dans L’Atlantique Sud. Paris: Universite de Paris X, 1986. PhD thesis, Murilo de Carvalho, A construção da ordem.
16. Jorge Caldeira, Mauá: Empresário do Império. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1995, p. 241.
17. 11,171.52 contos de réis, or 11,171,520 réis.
18. Irineu Evangelista de Sousa, the Viscount of Mauá (1813–1889), a Brazilian entrepreneur, industrialist, banker and politician. He was called the Rothschild of the South American continent by The New York Times in 1871. He received the titles of baron (1854) and visconde com grandeza (1874) of Mauá.
19. The question of immigration was only resolved when, from the decade of the 1870s, the government began to finance it, withdrawing the exclusive initiative from the farmers. See the preface to Sérgio Buarque de Holanda’s Memórias de um colono no Brasil (1850) by Thomas Davatz (Belo Horizonte and São Paulo: Itatiaia/Edusp, 1980), and Murilo de Carvalho, A construção da ordem, p. 316.
20. In O espetáculo das raças (op. cit.) there is an analysis of the impact of the racial theories in the selection of predominantly white groups of immigrants. For further details see Raça, ciência e sociedade, eds. Marcos Chor Maio and Ricardo Ventura Santos (Rio de Janeiro: Fiocruz/Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, 1996).
21. Alencastro, Le Commerce des vivants, p. 515.
22. For further details on the subject, we suggest Sidney Chalhoub, Cidade febril: Cortiços e epidemias na corte imperial. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1996.
23. The ‘court’ here, as in most other cases, refers to the city of Rio de Janeiro, rather than to the court itself.
24. This passage on urban slavery is based on the texts that Maria Helena Machado Lilia Schwarcz presented at the International Seminar Emancipação, Inclusão e Exclusão: Desafios do Passado e do Presente, organised in partnership with the Instituto Moreira Salles in October 2013.
25. Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839–1908), poet and novelist, founder of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, is considered to be one of Brazil’s greatest writers.
26. Fulano is a generic name, something like ‘John Doe’ in American usage. Fulano, Betrano, Sicrano is the exact equivalent of ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’.
27. Machado de Assis, Papéis avulsos. Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte: Garnier, 1989, pp. 118 and 120.
28. José de Alencar, O tronco do ipê. São Paulo: Ática, 1995, p. 14.
29. Carlos Gomes (1836–1896) was an important classical composer during the empire. He studied in Italy and composed operas in Verdian style that became immensely popular during his lifetime. One of his most well-known operas is ‘O Guarani’.
30. Martins Pena (1815–1848), one of Brazil’s funniest playwrights. His ‘comedies of manners’ earned him the nickname of the Brazilian Molière.
31. ‘The Barman’.
32. Darcy Damasceno (ed.), Martins Pena: Comédias. São Paulo: Ediouro, 1968, p. 78.
33. Wanderley Pinho, Salões e damas do Segundo Reinado. São Paulo: Martins, 1942, p. 5.
34. João Maurício Wanderley (1815–1889), Baron of Cotegipe, was an important politician, senator and minister of the Second Reign.
35. ‘Father against mother’.
36. Machado de Assis, Relíquias da Casa Velha. Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte: Garnier, 1990, pp. 17 and 27.
37. The Almanak Laemmert was produced by the German brothers Eduard and Heinrich Laemmert, and was issued by the imperial court every year between 1844 and 1889. It contained appointments of court officials, ministers and officials in the provinces, statistics, information on legislation and advertisements for goods and services.
38. Ibid.
39. Campos dos Goytacazes is located on the northern coast of the present-day state of Rio de Janeiro.
40. The respective populations for these capitals at the time were 354,396, 1,083,039 and 1,398,097 (Murilo de Carvalho, A construção da ordem, p. 104).
41. José Murilo de Carvalho, Teatro de sombras: A política imperial. Rio de Janeiro: Vértice/Iuperj, 1988; Murilo de Carvalho, A construção da ordem, p. 84.
42. Murilo de Carvalho, A construção da ordem, p. 210. See also José Murilo de Carvalho, Dom Pedro II (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2007).
43. Ilmar Rohloff de Mattos, O tempo de Saquarema, p. 51.
44. Murilo de Carvalho, A construção da ordem, p. 56.
45. Ibid.
46. Silvio Vasconcelos da Silveira Ramos Romero – Sílvio Romero (1851–1914) – was a literary critic, poet, philosopher and politician who attended law school in Recife.
47. Doctrine against Doctrine.
48. Sílvio Romero, Doutrina contra doutrina: O evolucionismo e o positivismo na República do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Lucta, 1895, p. 38.
49. See Murilo de Carvalho, A construção da ordem.
50. In 1847, with the introduction of a president of the Council de Conselho, Dom Pedro II only appointed the president, who, in turn, appointed the other members (Murilo de Carvalho, A construção da ordem, p. 49).
51. 800 contos de réis.
52. Murilo de Carvalho, A construção da ordem, p. 84.
53. Afonso Celso de Assis Figueiredo (1860–1938) was a Brazilian politician, historian, poet and journalist.
54. Afonso Celso de Assis Figueiredo, Oito annos de parlamento: Poder pessoal de d. Pedro II. São Paulo: Melhoramentos, 1928, p. 21.
55. ‘Medallion Theory’.
56. A political party that believes in the absolute power of the pope in all spiritual matters and questions of faith. The name originated in France.
57. Machado de Assis, Papéis avulsos, p. 74.
58. The Revolta Praieira, the Beach rebellion.
59. Murilo de Carvalho, Teatro de sombras, p. 374.
60. Afonso Arinos de Melo Franco, A câmara dos deputados: Síntese histórica. Brasília: Centro de Documentação e Informação, 1978, p. 114.
61. Honório Carneiro Leão, Marquês de Paraná (1801–1856), was one of the founders of the Conservative Party and President of the Council of Ministers in 1853.
62. Benedict Anderson, Comunidades imaginadas: Reflexões sobre a origem e a difusão do nacionalismo. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2008.
63. Anne-Marie Thiesse, La Création des identités nationales. Paris: Seuil, 1999.
64. See the article by José Augusto Pádua, ‘Natureza e sociedade no Brasil monár
quico’, in Grinberg and Salles (eds.), O Brasil imperial, and Schwarcz, As barbas do Imperador.
65. Antonio Candido, O romantismo no Brasil, 2nd edn. São Paulo: Humanitas, 2004, p. 81.
66. Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen (1816–1878), a Brazilian soldier, diplomat and historian. He obtained recognition as an historian with his two-volume General History of Brazil, written between 1854 and 1857.
67. Manuel José de Araújo Porto Alegre (1806–1879), writer, painter and art critic, was also director of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts.
68. Joaquim Norberto de Sousa e Silva (1820–1891) was part of the circle of intellectuals and artists who were close to the emperor.
69. Joaquim Manuel de Macedo (1820–1882), a Brazilian doctor and politician and noted writer from the Romantic movement, was the secretary of IHGB. He is also remembered as the author of the immensely popular A Moreninha (1844).
70. In 1817 von Martius (1794–1868) and Johann Baptist von Spix were sent to Brazil by Maximilian I Joseph, the King of Bavaria. They travelled from Rio de Janeiro through several of the southern and eastern provinces of Brazil and also to the Amazon.
71. Peter Wilhelm Lund (1801–1880) moved from his native Denmark to Brazil in 1833 where for ten years he undertook excavations of limestone caves in the Rio das Velhas valley in Minas Gerais.
72. Louis Couty (born France 1854, died Rio de Janeiro 1884) was a French physician and physiologist. Shortly after his arrival in Brazil, in 1876, he began to study curare, a plant poison, at the laboratory of the National Museum.
73. Émil August Goeldi (1859–1917) was a Swiss-Brazilian naturalist and zoologist. In 1884 he was invited to be the director of a new museum located in Belém, Pará.
74. Adalbert Derby (1851–1915) was an American geologist who worked with Charles Frederick Hartt in the first Geological Commission of the Empire of Brazil. In 1877, with the end of the Commission, Derby decided to stay in Brazil and accepted a post at the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro.
75. Charles Frederick Hartt (1840–1878), a Canadian-American geologist, palaeontologist and naturalist who specialized in the geology of Brazil.
76. Auguste François Marie Glaziou (1828–1906), a French landscape designer and botanist. In 1858, at the request of Dom Pedro II, he moved to Rio de Janeiro as director of parks and gardens, and was responsible for the landscape design of the gardens of the Palácio de São Cristóvão.
77. Simon Schwartzman, ‘A ciência no Império’, in Um espaço para a ciência: A formação da comunidade científica no Brasil, 2001. Available at:
78. The following passage, on Romantic Indianism, is based on the book As barbas do Imperador by Lilia Moritz Schwarcz.
79. Candido, O romantismo no Brasil, p. 27.
80. Pedro Puntoni, ‘Gonçalves de Magalhães e a historiografia do Império’, Novos Estudos Cebrap, São Paulo, no. 45 (1996).
81. Baltasar da Silva Lisboa (1761–1840) was a magistrate and historian from Bahia.
82. Antônio Gonçalves Dias (1823–1864) was not just a Romantic poet but also a well-known playwright.
83. Gonçalves Dias, Poesias completas, 2nd edn. São Paulo: Saraiva, 1957, p. 525.
84. José de Alencar (1829–1877) was a Brazilian politician and prolific writer.
85. Gonçalves de Magalhães, A confederação dos Tamoios, 3rd edn. Rio de Janeiro: Garnier, 1864, pp. 353–4.
86. Simplício Rodrigues de Sá (born Cape Verde 1785, died Rio de Janeiro 1839), a Portuguese-born painter and art professor who emigrated to Brazil in 1809. He was named a court painter and private art tutor to Princess Maria da Glória, the future Queen of Portugal.
87. Félix-Émile Taunay, Baron of Taunay (1795–1881), was the son of Nicolas-Antoine Taunay, and travelled to Brazil with his father in 1816. Three years later Nicolas-Antoine returned to France, leaving Félix his post at the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes. In 1835 he was appointed as the young emperor’s Greek, drawing and literature tutor.
88. Victor Meirelles de Lima (1832–1903) was one of the protected painters of the emperor and was particularly recognized for his magnificent historical scenes.
89. The First Mass in Brazil.
90. José Maria Medeiros (1849–1925), a Portuguese painter who became a Brazilian citizen. In 1868 he entered the Academia Imperial de Belas Artes where he studied with Victor Meirelles. In 1884 the emperor granted him the Imperial Order of the Rose in recognition of his painting Iracema.
91. Gabriel Soares de Sousa (1540–1591), a Portuguese explorer and naturalist.
92. Sebastião da Rocha Pita (1660–1738), a Brazilian poet and historian. In 1730 he published History of Portuguese America from the Year 1500 of its Discovery to the Year 1724.
CHAPTER 12
1. Francisco Fernando Monteoliva Doratioto, O conflito com o Paraguai: A grande guerra do Brasil. São Paulo: Ática, 1996, p. 7.
2. Francisco Inácio de Carvalho Moreira, Baron of Penedo (1815–1906), was an important politician and diplomat during the Second Reign. In 1852 he was appointed as ambassador to the United States and then as Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain.
3. Zacarias de Góis e Vasconcelos (1815–1877) was president of the provinces of Piauí and Sergipe and the first president of the new sate of Paraná; provincial deputy for Bahia and later deputy general and senator for Bahia (from 1864 to 1877), Minister of the Navy, of Justice and of Finance, and three times president of the Council of Ministers.
4. Eusébio de Queirós Coutinho Matoso da Câmara (born Luanda 1812, died Rio de Janeiro 1868) was Minister of Justice from 1848 to 1852 and the author of the law that abolished the slave traffic in 1850, known as the Eusébio de Queirós Law.
5. Robert W. Slenes, ‘ “Malungu, Ngoma vem!”: África coberta e descoberta no Brasil’, Cadernos do Museu de Escravatura, Luanda, vol. 1 (1995); Chalhoub, Visões da liberdade.
6. Hebe Mattos, ‘Raça e cidadania no crepúsculo da modernidade escravista no Brasil’, in Grinberg and Salles (eds.), O Brasil imperial, vol. 3: 1870–1889, pp. 20–2.
7. It is not possible here to explain all the complexities of these events. For further information see Doratioto, O conflito com o Paraguai; Ricardo Salles, Guerra do Paraguai: Escravidão e cidadania na formação do Exército (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1990); André Toral, Adeus, Chamigo brasileiro: Uma história da guerra do Paraguai (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1997); Evangelista de Castro Dionísio Cerqueira, Reminiscências da campanha do Paraguai, 1865–1870 (Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca do Exército, 1979); Milda Rivarola, Vagos pobre y soldados (Assunção: Centro Paraguaio de Estudos Sociológicos, 1994); John Schulz, O Exército na política: Origens da intervenção militar: 1850–1894 (São Paulo: Edusp, 1994); and Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, O expansionismo brasileiro e a formação dos estados na Bacia do Prata (Brasília: UnB; São Paulo: Ensaio, 1995).
8. Mate (sometimes written ‘maté’ in English) is a traditional South American caffeine-rich infused drink, particularly popular in Argentina, southern Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, the Bolivian Chaco and southern Brazil.
9. Uruguaiana is the region on the eastern frontier of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, which shares a border with Argentina and Uruguay.
10. Doratioto, O conflito com o Paraguai, p. 22.
11. For the development of the Brazilian Army, see Schulz, O Exército na política, Nelson Werneck Sodré, História militar do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 1965), among others.
12. Machado de Assis, Iaiá Garcia. Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte: Garnier, 1988, p. 72.
13. The naval Battle of Riachuelo was fought on 11 June 1865. The Brazilian fleet commanded by Admiral Barroso destroyed the Paraguayan navy.
14. Machado de Assis, Histórias sem data. Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte: Garnier, 1989, p. 117.
15. Joaquim Marques Lisboa, Marquis of Tamandaré (1807–1897), a member of the Liberal Party, was
Brazil’s first native admiral.
16. José Antônio Pimenta Bueno, Marquis of São Vicente (1803–1878), was Chief of Police, High Court Judge in Maranhão and Rio de Janeiro, Minister of Foreign Trade, Minister of Justice and President of the Council of Ministers. In 1849, Pimenta Bueno left the Liberal Party and joined forces with the Conservatives.
17. José Tomás Nabuco de Araújo Filho (1813–1878) was deputy general, president of the province of São Paulo, Minister of Justice and senator of the empire.
18. IHGB, tin 322 – file 317, report by Councillor Nabuco de Araújo. See Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, Lúcia Klück Stumpf and Carlos Lima Junior, A Batalha do Avaí: A beleza da barbárie – A Guerra do Paraguai pintada por Pedro Américo (Rio de Janeiro: Sextante, 2013).
19. José Maria da Silva Paranhos, the Viscount of Rio Branco (1819–1880), was an important monarchist, politician, diplomat and journalist during the empire (1822–1889).
20. Atas do Conselho de Estado Pleno, Terceiro Conselho de Estado, 1865–7, 2 April 1867. Available at:
21. Grinberg and Salles (eds.), O Brasil imperial, p. 133.
22. On the morning of 6 December 1868, Caxias led 16,999 infantrymen, 926 cavalrymen and 742 artillerymen to take the Paraguayan town of Villeta. The plan was to attack the rear of the Paraguayan army. But Solano discovered that the allies had landed in the rear of his army and sent 5,000 men to stop the enemy at a narrow passage over a stream called Itororó.
23. The Battle of Avaí was fought in December 1868 beside the small river of that name in Paraguayan territory. Many consider it to be the bloodiest battle in the history of South America.
24. Caxias left Villeta at two in the morning on 21 December 1868, and by noon was ready to storm the Lomas Valentinas fortifications on the banks of a small tributary of the Paraguay river. The Paraguayan defences were finally taken on 27 December. López managed to make his escape with his cavalry.
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