The visconde’s first official act, after three days of agonizing over Silvério dos Reis’s denunciation, was to send a letter to the câmara of Vila Rica on March 14, 1789, informing the aldermen that plans to impose the derrama were suspended indefinitely.
The next day, he summoned Silvério dos Reis to Cachoeira. “You’ve told no one of our discussion?”
“No, Excellency. I said only that I came to ask for time to pay my debts.”
“Time is what I need. The câmara of Vila Rica has been told that the derrama is suspended; a circular letter will be sent to the other councils. The opportunity for revolution is lost, but I won’t arrest the traitors until I can be assured of apprehending everyone involved in this treason. Now, Senhor Silvério, tell me all you know, including your own association with these men.”
“You agree, Excellency, to ask a pardon for my debts?”
The visconde eyed the informer coldly. “The queen’s gratitude is certain to be boundless.”
Silvério dos Reis gave a mighty sigh of relief. Then he revealed everything he knew of the plans for the liberation of Minas Gerais.
“André Vaz! André Vaz!”
The call was accompanied by an urgent rapping on the door of the shop in the rua das Flôres. It was past midnight, and a slave sleeping on the floor in front of the counter awoke and quickly opened the door.
“Fetch your master!” Fernandes Soares commanded.
A few minutes later, André came down the steps.
“All is lost!” Fernandes cried. “Joaquim José has been arrested at Rio de Janeiro!”
“Sweet Jesus!”
It was May 17, 1789, nine weeks since Barbacena suspended the derrama. His sudden and unexpected announcement led some of the plotters to believe they had been betrayed. But later, when Judge Gonzaga and others met with the visconde at Cachoeira do Campo, he had given no indication that he was aware of their plans. The alarm had passed, but with the derrama suspended, the plans for an uprising were also postponed indefinitely.
A few of the conspirators argued that they should act immediately. “Either way, if they catch us now, we’ll hang on a high royal gallows,” said Alvarenga Peixoto.
Such talk increased the anxieties of some who were convinced that a spy among the group was responsible for the suspension of the derrama, and they had begun to look at their fellow conspirators with suspicion. High on their list was Silvério dos Reis because of his past record for dishonesty. His increased visits to Cachoeira do Campo had been noticed, and four weeks ago, he had suddenly announced that he was traveling to Rio de Janeiro “to compliment the viceroy and consult him about my debts.” In fact, Silvério dos Reis was carrying a letter of introduction from the visconde de Barbacena to his uncle, Dom Vasconceles e Souza, to whom Silvério dos Reis was to repeat his denunciation.
Silvério dos Reis reached Rio de Janeiro in May, and immediately upon hearing his information, the viceroy, Dom Vasconceles e Souza, had appointed a secret court of inquiry to collect evidence of the conspiracy. He had ordered the arrest of Alferes Joaquim José da Silva Xavier.
Those weeks before his arrest had been frustrating for Silva Xavier, who found himself an increasingly lonely prophet. The group of merchants and intellectuals he thought shared José de Maia’s dedication to liberty turned out to be as hesitant toward rebellion as those men he had left behind at Vila Rica.
In late April, friends in the military had warned Silva Xavier that the viceroy was having him watched. Nevertheless, he had boldly presented himself at the viceroy’s palace to request permission to return to Vila Rica. Refused a passport, he had gone into hiding in rooms above the workshop of a friend, Domingos da Cruz, whose home was in the rua das Latoeiras, the street of braziers and lathe workers.
Silva Xavier still hoped for the seizure of the royal fifth, which he had spoken of only to his closest friends. He intended to stay in hiding for a few days and then leave the city at night, heading for the road to São Paulo, from where he would travel back to Minas Gerais.
On May 9, the alferes learned that Silvério dos Reis was in the capital. Eager to know about events at Vila Rica, he sent a trusted priest to Senhor Silvério. The turncoat had been evasive, showing more interest in learning Silva Xavier’s whereabouts than in giving details of developments in Minas Gerais. The priest, growing suspicious, had left without revealing Silva Xavier’s hiding place, but he had been followed.
Twenty-four hours later, soldiers of the viceroy’s guard surrounded the brazier’s shop.
Silva Xavier had been taken to the Ilha das Cobras in Guanabara Bay. Here he had been locked up in the dungeon of a fortress dominating this rocky Isle of Snakes.
Now, past midnight on May 17, Fernandes was reporting the dreadful news. André was full of questions:
“When did it happen? How did you learn of it?”
“Joaquim was arrested by the viceroy’s guard seven days ago. A message was brought to Dr. Cláudio Manuel.”
“By whom?”
“All I know is that a rider was sent from Rio de Janeiro to Dr. Cláudio’s house. He called my father. He says it’s not only Silva Xavier who’s been betrayed but all of us. We must go immediately. The gunpowder! We have to get rid of it!”
“Who betrayed us?”
“No traitor was mentioned,” Fernandes said. “For the love of God, André, go! Dress! We can talk on the way.”
André hesitated. “My cousins, the tropeiros from São Paulo, are at the fazenda.”
“The powder is not their concern.”
“It will be if we arrive in the middle of the night.”
Finally, they decided that in the morning they would go to the fazenda and arrange to conceal the gunpowder in abandoned mine workings in the hills nearby.
The next morning, André and Fernandes Soares went to the fazenda and had no difficulty disposing of the kegs of gunpowder.
When André told Raimundo da Silva that he was leaving Vila Rica immediately with Constança and José Inocêncio, his father surprised him by showing an awareness of his predicament. “Go. Save your bacon, André, while there’s time. As old as I am, the Lord has spared my eyes and my ears. All this talk of liberty and independence from the alferes . . . only one man at Vila Rica was not privy to your schemes — the visconde de Barbacena — and only because he chose to live at Cachoeira do Campo.”
When André spoke with Constança, she remained silent, until he shook her by the shoulders. “Do you understand me? We must go now. If we don’t, you’ll watch them take me away.”
“Damn you!” she said. “Damn you for the shame of José Inocêncio!” Before André could speak, she hurried away to prepare herself and the child for their exile.
They left Vila Rica with the tropeiros on May 19, 1789, heading south on the road to São João d’El Rei. The two muleteers were sons of Agostinho and Vicente, the brothers of Benedito Bueno da Silva of Itatinga. Both Tobias Henrique and Ivo were hard-drinking, taciturn men, who asked few questions about André’s request to accompany them, though they suspected it was connected with the excitement at Vila Rica, which was rife with rumors that the visconde was about to round up a gang of contrabandistas.
The road to São João d’El Rei was busy, and on three occasions during the first two days of the journey they were overtaken by cavalry patrols, one of which halted briefly while the officer in charge questioned them. While Tobias Henrique produced his passport and licenses for the mule train, André, who was dressed in shoddy breeches and an old jacket, stayed with the mule drivers. The dragoon found Tobias Henrique’s papers to be in order, made a cursory inspection of the mule train without bothering to examine the animals’ packs, and then rode off with his men.
Toward evening on May 22, they were twenty miles from São João d’El Rei. Again they saw horsemen bearing down upon them: two white men and four black and mulatto slaves. Slowing their pace beside the mule train, the older of the two white men asked for water. André acknowledged th
e request and rode over to a mule that carried leather water bags. He untied one and took it to the man.
“Orlando Costa Guedes,” the man introduced himself when André passed him the bag. Heavily armed, he carried sword and pistols, and a musket beside his saddle. “My son, Simão,” he said, jerking his head toward the younger man.
“Your fazenda is nearby?” André asked.
Guedes did not reply immediately. He drank from the container. “We have a mine ten leagues back,” he said, passing the water bag to his son.
André watched Guedes thoughtfully as the man brushed drops of water off his clothes. After some moments, he said softly, “The day of your baptism, senhor?”
Guedes gave a quizzical look in response to what was to have been the watchword for the uprising. “Where are you from?” he asked.
“Vila Rica, senhor. André Vaz da Silva, son of the merchant da Silva. I’m taking my wife and child to São Paulo.”
“Then, Vaz da Silva, thank God you left in time.”
“What has happened?”
“Judge Gonzaga, Dr. Cláudio Manuel — all have been arrested.”
“You were there?”
“My son was. At dawn yesterday the visconde’s soldiers arrested them. Simão rode through the night.”
André looked at the young man slouched in the saddle. “Luis Fialho Soares? His son, Fernandes?”
Simão Guedes shrugged. “I don’t know them. Many were taken away.”
“To where do you ride, senhor?”
“São João d’El Rei. There you’ll find few houses open to the queen’s soldiers. We go to fight for our independence with Alvarenga Peixoto and Padre Carlos Correia.”
As Guedes and his son and their slaves rode off, André could not restrain himself, “Libertas! Libertas, quae sera tamen!”
He saw Orlando Guedes shake a fist in the air and heard him shout the same words.
For the next hour, André rode beside the mules in deep silence. Many times he looked at Constança, who was carrying José Inocêncio and riding twenty yards ahead of him. He could not get the miner and his son out of his mind and imagined them far along the road spurring their horses to join the fight. Libertas, quae sera tamen! André was torn by indecision. How could he abandon his wife and child at the very edge of the battlefield?
“Stop!” André cried. “Stop the mules, Tobias Henrique!”
“What’s wrong?”
“The men who came by, Orlando Guedes and his son, Simão . . .”
“Yes?”
“I have to join them, Tobias Henrique, at São João d’El Rei.”
“I won’t take my mules there.”
“No. You mustn’t.” He looked across at Constança. “There’s a trail that passes north of the town.”
“I know it.”
“It will be safer for my wife and child. Take them, please, to your uncle, Senhor Benedito Bueno. A few months, God willing, and I’ll fetch my family.”
André drove his horse forward toward a gap in the Serra do São José, which rose north of the city of São José d’El Rei. Whatever lay ahead in the weeks and months to come, he would remember this triumphant hour, riding with the knowledge that all their hopes had not been in vain.
A mile from the town, nine cavalrymen burst out of the trees beside the road, four to the left of André, five to the right.
“Halt!”
André spurred his horse to make a run for it. A shot cracked to his left and he was struck in the forearm. As he fought to stay in the saddle, two dragoons swept up beside him, sabres glinting in the moonlight.
“Surrender or die!”
André reined in his horse.
“Ah, Mother!” he cried, when he handed over his pistol a few moments later. “What use was this to me?”
The cavalrymen disarming him laughed. They knew there were others in jail at São José d’El Rei who had said the same, for not one among the traitors arrested this night of May 22, 1789, had fired a shot.
André was taken to the town jail at São João d’El Rei, where he found Orlando and Simão Guedes, who had been captured in circumstances similar to his own. When André’s friendship with Alferes Silva Xavier was discovered, he was transferred, first to Vila Rica’s prison, then, in late September 1789, to Rio de Janeiro. There he was put in the dungeons of the fort of Nossa Senhora do Conceição, on the east end of the city above The Valongo, the slave depot and market. He was held incommunicado for thirty months, while a royal tribunal investigated the plot against Her Majesty Dona Maria, which came to be known as the “Inconfidência Mineira.”
Alferes Silva Xavier and twenty-eight others suffered the same incarceration. The betrayer Silvério dos Reis had been detained briefly but then released lest unfavorable treatment of the informer deter others willing to testify against the traitors. Absent, too, was Dr. Cláudio Manuel da Costa: On July 4, 1789, his body was found hanging in a closet under the stairwell of the house of the magnate Rodrigo de Macedo, who had also evaded prosecution by collaborating with the visconde de Barbacena. His death was declared a suicide in remorse for an abject confession incriminating his friends.
Luis Fialho Soares and Fernandes had been among the men taken in bonds from Vila Rica to the coast. Luis Fialho had also been imprisoned in Fort Conceição. Luis Fialho’s older son, Martinho, had bribed the guards at the fort to allow him to visit his father.
Luis Fialho had ridiculed the idea that Dr. Cláudio Manuel had taken his own life. “Hang himself? That gracious, gentle man? Never!” he had said to Martinho. “He was murdered before he could tell the viceroy’s judges the truth about Rodrigo de Macedo and others involved with us. He was killed because of snakes like Silvério dos Reis, who slither around the feet of the visconde de Barbacena. The visconde himself sleeps easier with Dr. Cláudio in his grave. There are many who believe the visconde was listening to Dr. Cláudio and others — listening to the wind and trying to determine which way it would blow.”
Luis Fialho had passed his sixty-first birthday in May 1791 in Fort Conceição, with his jailors and the rats and roaches, in a seven-by-five-foot cell. Twenty-two punishing months in this cold, damp place: Luis Fialho died in the first week of June 1791, and was buried by the Franciscans, who cared for the spiritual needs of these infamous men.
André had also been visited by tragedy during this period of imprisonment. He got news of the death of Senhor Raimundo da Silva. And from his cousin, Silvestre da Silva, he had a letter announcing the death of Constança. Unknown to André, she had been in early pregnancy when she undertook the arduous journey to São Paulo. She had miscarried and fallen grievously ill, and despite Senhor Benedito Bueno’s sending for not one but two doctors to attend to her, Constança died, on October 11, 1789.
André had been taken before courts of inquiry and the royal tribunal six times to be interrogated about his friendship with Alferes Silva Xavier. He had answered the judges and magistrates truthfully, without mentioning the gunpowder smuggled from Matias Barbosa; he and Fernandes had sworn to keep this secret. He was surprised, at his first interrogation at Vila Rica, that it hadn’t come out. But he had no way of knowing that the few conspirators who were aware of active preparations for rebellion were just as anxious as he and Fernandes to conceal these in support of the defense that the Inconfidência Mineira had been no more than talk about independence.
Without this evidence, André, though accused of treason by his association with the leaders of the independence movement, was regarded as having played a lesser role than men such as Gonzaga, Freire de Andrade, and Alvarenga Peixoto, whose lèse-majesté was seen as most horrible because at one time or another they had served in the administration of Minas Gerais and had been among the most respected and influential men in the captaincy.
By October 1791, the royal tribunal had completed its interrogations. Dr. José de Oliveira Fagundes, a lawyer of the Santa Casa de Misericórdia, was appointed counsel for the conspirators.
Aft
er a lengthy plea for each man, Dr. Fagundes, while acknowledging that they had met on many occasions to discuss an uprising against the State, pleaded for clemency:
“This disloyalty against Her Majesty and infatuation with republican ideas was no more than a criminal excess of loquaciousness and a pastime of fanciful notions that vanished as soon as the defendants were dispersed.
“They offended only by words and not deeds, and good reason demands a distinction between thought and consummation . . . They humbly ask the forgiveness of Her Majesty for their rashness and foolishness.”
The royal tribunal recessed for six months after listening to Dr. Fagundes’s appeal to consider the evidence and pleas presented to the three judges. In mid-April 1792, they were ready to deliver their verdict, and on the night of April 17, André Vaz da Silva and the other accused were moved under heavy guard from various dungeons and prisons to the public jail of Rio de Janeiro.
By 8:00 A.M. on April 18, the tribunal was in session. There was no question of the guilt of the majority, and today’s proceedings were for their sentencing, but the tribunal’s written findings covered every aspect of the Inconfidência. The judgment and sentence took eighteen hours to deliver, from 8:00 A.M. on April 18 till 2:00 A.M., on April 19.
“André Vaz da Silva!”
It was almost midnight. The High Court chamber was illuminated with lamps and candles. When his name was called, André rose and stepped forward groggily, feeling the exhaustion of the past sixteen hours, during which the tribunal had allowed only two short adjournments.
“André Vaz da Silva, your crime of treasonably conspiring to withdraw from the subjugation due to the royal sovereign is proved conclusively. Though the evidence against you indicates that you were not among the leaders of the conspiracy, you attended gatherings where they held their criminal sessions. You had full knowledge of the planned insurrection and failed to denounce it, as is the duty of a loyal and faithful vassal. You rode to São João d’El Rei with every intention of taking up arms against the Crown.
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