Brazil

by Errol Lincoln Uys

  A section of the Republican party and press had been wooing the army since the beginning of the “military question,” as the various clashes between army and government were known. These Republicans, aware of their impotence at the polls, were coming to a consensus with their military friends that only a revolution could oust the decaying monarchy.

  The overwhelming feeling was that the ailing Pedro Segundo should be allowed to end his reign peacefully, and only then should the nation decide on the fate of Princess Isabel and her spouse.

  At Corumbá, Colonel Clóvis Lima had had months to brood over these questions. But, however angry he got, Clóvis remained loyal to the Crown. When he said there were scores to be settled at the Corte, he was thinking only of revenge against the politicians responsible for the continuing insults to the military. He was aware that his son Honôrio, who was at Rio de Janeiro, belonged to the clique of Positivist-minded officers who favored radical solutions. They could debate with their Republican friends until they were blue in the face, but without the support of Marshal Deodoro and older officers like himself, there would be no revolution.

  At Tiberica, Senhor Firmino Dantas da Silva could not have found life more comfortable or promising. In the months from May to July, more than 600,000 mature coffee trees at Itatinga, had been stripped of their red-to-brown cherries, the richest harvest seen at the fazenda. By August, the harvested trees showed the first flowering of white rosettes, blossoms of triumph for coffee, the real master of man and land in southern Brazil.

  Paulista fazendeiros like Firmino Dantas who had abandoned slave labor before abolition had naturally been better prepared for the consequences than planters who waited until May 13.

  At Itatinga, Firmino Dantas and Aristides had divided the 207 Italians into two colonies, where they had their mud-walled houses and small plots for their own use. At the end of the contract year, an Italian could pack up and leave for another plantation or with the hope of bettering himself in town. At Itatinga, there had been but one departure, the family of a bootmaker who had got work in Tiberica.

  The Italians were subject to fines for various misdemeanors, including tardiness, inebriation, failure to keep their livestock from wandering into forbidden pastures, and excessive wife-beating. Firmino Dantas carefully reviewed all cases brought to him by an administrator appointed to handle the affairs of the colonos.

  The tenants and squatters, into whose lower ranks the liberated slaves had drifted, were treated less patiently. Vagabonds or troublemakers were swiftly expelled from the fazenda. The head overseer, Cesar, now controlled a work gang of camaradas, free agregados, and former slaves, and still administered the occasional clout to the blacks when aroused beyond endurance.

  Thus, with an evolving regime that showed promise of preserving intact the vast fiefs of the great landowners, and with two bumper harvests to boot, Firmino Dantas had every reason to find life so agreeable.

  His oldest son, Evaristo, a pale, thin nineteen-year-old, was enrolled at São Paulo Law School, just as his father had been at that age. João, the youngest child, was also in the capital, at boarding school. Delfina, the eighteen-year-old daughter, was a handsome girl, if too plump from years of sharing her mother’s delight in sticky cakes. Dona Carlinda herself was growing stouter, with a shadow of down on her upper lip.

  Senhor Firmino spent ever more time with Jolanta dos Santos at the house on rua Riachuelo, where he made love with a passion he had once believed would be denied him forever.

  On the evening of August 23, 1889, Jolanta’s thirty-first birthday, Firmino Dantas marked the occasion with a gift he did not reveal until late that night.

  “How many years have you been mine, Jolanta?”

  “Forever, ‘Nhor. A thousand, thousand years!”

  “Yes, but exactly how long?”

  “Oh, my!” she said, with mock alarm. “‘Nhor is tired of Jolanta?”

  “No . . . never.”

  “December 1880,” he confirmed. “Nine years ago you left Dr. Amêrico’s house.”

  “I’ve been happy, ‘Nhor.” Her voice grew very soft. “Oh, so happy.”

  “Open it, Jolanta,” he said, placing a velvet-covered box on her lap.

  “Oh, Senhor Firmino, what a treasure —” she said in wonderment.

  The necklace sparkled, nine emeralds set in diamonds, blazing like green fire, the finest gems from deep in the sertão of Minas Gerais.

  “The institutions of our nation are run-down and bankrupt. The longer we delay the fulfillment of Brazil’s true destiny, the more it will cost us in the end,” Aristides Tavares declared, and waited for a response from Firmino Dantas and Clóvis Lima da Silva.

  The three men were sitting in one of the upstairs parlors at Itatinga. Two days ago, September 7, 1889, Clóvis Lima’s column had reached the railhead, now sixty miles west of Tiberica. The colonel’s men had gone straight on to São Paulo, but Clóvis had stopped off and come out to the fazenda, where he spent much of the day venting his anger over the “banishment” to Corumbá and the long march through Mato Grosso. It was early evening now, after dinner, and Clóvis was puffing a superior Havana, the rapid bursts of smoke suggesting he was still far from calm.

  Clóvis finally replied to Aristides: “The price will be just as high, my young friend, if we’re swept away by illusory ideals.”

  “With respect, Colonel, the United States of Brazil is not a vision of Utopians.”

  “And what about the Sauls converted by abolition, the thousands of slaveocrats flocking to the Republicans for revenge? Until May thirteenth, they were the emperor’s best friends. What vision do these men have beyond self-interest? Will they stand by you if your republic doesn’t work out as planned?”

  “The nation is at heart Republican.”

  “Rubbish!”

  Firmino Dantas supported Clóvis. “Two Republican seats in Parliament, Ari — that’s not very convincing.” Liberals and Conservatives had swept to victory in an election held in August 1889.

  “It was a massive vote of sympathy for the emperor,” Aristides suggested.

  Clóvis blew out a small cloud of smoke. “It was more than that. The nation isn’t ready for a republic. Can you imagine what it would be like if there were a successful revolt against the monarchy? We have a mass of illiterates out there who would be thrown into total confusion.”

  “Exactly! Most of our people are semi-barbaric. They vegetate and die without contributing to the nation. This is the legacy of our empire.”

  “We’ve had forty years of internal peace,” Firmino objected.

  “Yes, senhor — and a bloody war waged, for which the patriots who served got no thanks.”

  “Would you rather have seen Brazil dismembered? Half a dozen squabbling republics?”

  “I have more faith in our people, senhor.”

  Clóvis interjected: “You have faith that our ‘semi-barbarians,’ as you just called them, would have continued to dwell together peacefully in Brazil, advancing toward the ‘Order and Progress’ my Honôrio is so fond of prattling about?”

  “Yes, Colonel, I have the utmost faith in a united Brazil. We are one people — by language, race, religion. Our patriots fought the French, the Dutch, the Spaniards, and by the time of Tiradentes, we were ready to take on the Portuguese themselves.”

  “André Vaz da Silva thought we were ready,” Clóvis remarked. “Like your Republicans and others who think it’s time now to overthrow the monarchy. ‘Liberty, even though late!’ the Tooth-Puller promised. The sad truth was, no one was there to listen. Ask the mass of our people what they understand by ‘liberty’ or ‘democracy.’ You’ll get a thousand different answers, and not one will make much sense. I agree our politicians are making a mess of things, but I’ll say this: Without Dom Pedro to keep them in check, it would be a damn sight worse.”

  “Dom Pedro can’t last forever, Colonel.”

  “That is a problem,” Clóvis Lima said, smoke clouding the air as he
exhaled deeply. “A great problem,” he added.

  “Things are coming fast,” Firmino Dantas added. “A few wrong steps and we could wake to a nightmare in this land.”

  “I seem to have heard the same concern, Senhor Firmino, from others, before abolition,” Aristides said. “The future of our nation is in the balance. We must have the courage to act.”

  “And to face the consequences,” Clóvis Lima said heavily.

  Aristides was not dissuaded: “We must do whatever is necessary, not for ourselves — for the future of Brazil.”

  The night of November 9 was partly overcast, the thin clouds drifting eerily past the moon. The granite sentinel Sugar Loaf and the low hill of Urca lay outlined in the distance; other peaks were clustered darkly behind the gaslit streets and houses of Rio de Janeiro. From the quay at Praça de D. Pedro II, formerly the Praça Palácio, and from other embarkation points dozens of launches plied back and forth between the quay and Ilha Fiscal, an island offshore from the old praça, the boat lanterns bobbing like so many fireflies above the waters of Guanabara Bay. Approaching the island, the launches were dwarfed by three battle cruisers — Riachuelo, Aquidaba, and Almirante Cochrane —anchored off Ilha Fiscal, their superstructures a blaze of light.

  Beyond a landing where the ferryboats were disembarking their passengers, the illuminations blazed even brighter along a broad stone walk and from the windows of a palatial ballroom. Barons, viscounts, marquises, knights were coming ashore in droves, the cream of Brazilian aristocracy pouring onto the Ilha Fiscal to mingle with members of the city’s upper crust.

  A swarm of liveried attendants waited upon the four thousand guests, who that night consumed 500 turkeys, 1,300 chickens, 64 pheasants, 1,600 pounds of shrimp, 20,000 sandwiches, 1,400 sorbets, 2,900 platters of confections, 10,000 liters of beer, 304 cases of wine and assorted libations. Several orchestras provided uninterrupted entertainment, the strains of their music drifting out over Guanabara Bay.

  The host for the gargantuan affair was His Imperial Majesty, Dom Pedro Segundo, who was giving the ball to honor the commander and officers of the Almirante Cochrane, a Chilean warship. The Chileans and their counterparts in the imperial navy were conspicuous in their dress uniform. The army was represented, too, some forty-five officers in all, fewer than would have been invited had there been less bad blood between them and the Frock Coats who were here en masse.

  It was fantastic, Aristides Tavares thought: the aristocracy of a tottering empire sharing pleasantries as they waited to welcome their emperor and empress, behaving as if a thousand nights were left to them. He looked at Anna Pinto dressed like a princess in a pale-pink off-the-shoulder Paris gown with tiny puff sleeves. Oh, Anna Pinto, how lovely you are, he thought. So real, amid this grand illusion!

  Aristides and Anna Pinto were staying at Clóvis Lima’s house in the suburb of Flamengo. The colonel himself was still with those officers loyal to the emperor, but from the incendiary declarations of Honôrio da Silva — “I am ready to fight and die in the public praças for the honor of the nation!” — Aristides Tavares knew that were it not for the hesitancy of older men such as Clóvis Lima and Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca, the army would be in open rebellion.

  This very day, Lieutenant Honôrio da Silva had been present when 150 officers met at the Clube Militar to consider the latest affront to their dignity. Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin Constant Botelho de Magalhães, the Positivist professor with Republican leanings, was at the center of a storm that had blown up over antigovernment statements he’d made during an address to the visiting Chileans on October 25. A group of cadets and officers had been censured for applauding the colonel; then came an announcement that the Twenty-second Battalion was to be packed off to Amazonas on November 10. At the Clube Militar meeting, Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin Constant was empowered, once and for all, to seek satisfaction from the Frock Coats — in effect, to organize a revolution.

  In the fairy-tale setting on Ilha Fiscal, most nobles and Frock Coats, secure in the knowledge that the empire had survived previous outbreaks of republicanism and other manifestations of discontent, were confident that the monarchy would ride out this storm.

  A few minutes before 10:00 P.M., the vast crowd grew animated as word passed that the royal barge was approaching. At precisely ten, the schoolteacher/emperor and his suite landed on Ilha Fiscal amid a spontaneous uproar of Vivas for Their Majesties. Dom Pedro walked with a slight stoop. His thin hair was white; his great beard, too, the perfection of his image as a father figure.

  Aristides and Anna were a few yards away from the royal party as they came up the steps to the ballroom. Da Silva’s eyes followed His Majesty as he walked into the big room. Suddenly, he saw Dom Pedro stumble at the edge of the long red carpet laid from the doorway. Several people rushed to help His Majesty regain his equilibrium, and Aristides, for all his criticism of the monarchy, couldn’t help feeling a deep sadness.

  The barão de Jacuribe, Rodrigo Alves Cavalcanti, was one of the men who reached out to help Pedro. When Cavalcanti grabbed his arm, the emperor lightheartedly said, “The monarchy slipped, Barão, but did not fall,” and resumed his passage into the ballroom. The barão smiled and stepped back to his party, which included the Baronesa Josepha and their son Gilberto.

  It had been three years since Senhor Rodrigo and his partners launched Usina Jacuribe. The sugar factory was a success from the start, crushing the canes of Engenho Santo Tomás and, by this year’s harvest, which was now in progress, the canes of every engenho in the two valleys.

  Despite continued appeals from his brother, Dr. Fábio, Rodrigo had maintained the senzala at Engenho Santo Tomás until the morning of May 14, 1888, when a telegram reached Rosário with news of The Golden Law.

  The barão was in Rio de Janeiro to renew loans for the usina, for, though the factory operated successfully, low sugar prices kept its profits to a minimum. The older Cavalcantis were staying with Gilberto and his wife, Nadina. Senhor Rodrigo was proud of his middle son’s achievements as a professor, though he was fonder of Duarte, whom he considered a pillar of strength and tradition and saw as the next usineiro — the modern version of “senhor de engenho.” On the voyage from Recife to the Corte, the barão and his wife had stopped at the Bahia to see young Celso, who was in a seminary at Salvador.

  Senhor Rodrigo found the air at the Corte unsettling. “Why does the government hesitate?” he had asked Gilberto, who was as much a diehard monarchist as his father. “Ouro Prêto should round up these anarchists before it’s too late.” The visconde de Ouro Prêto, Afonso Celso de Assis Figueiredo, was the prime minister heading the Liberal cabinet.

  “The minister has to tread warily to avoid touching off a powder keg,” Gilberto Cavalcanti said. “Benjamin Constant carries a torch wherever he goes.

  “Ouro Prêto can use the Guarda Nacional.”

  “It won’t come to that, senhor.”

  “Long ago, the Guarda should have been strengthened. A few batteries of Krupp guns would make our Benjamin Constant think twice before opening his mouth.”

  “It will blow over,” Gilberto had predicted. “The generals are loyal to the emperor.”

  On Ilha Fiscal, the barão de Jacuribe remained reasonably confident that Gilberto was correct. Even his brother, Dr. Fábio, who followed these developments more closely than he, believed that the army placed the interests of the nation above all considerations and realized that the empire was Brazil. Dr. Fábio had also set Rodrigo’s mind at rest about the Republicans, who were infiltrating at least the merchant class of Recife: The monarchy could, if it acted decisively, accommodate most of the reforms proposed by the Republicans, even the granting of greater autonomy to the provinces, Fábio maintained. Rodrigo was relieved: Anything was preferable to a republic, especially one dominated by the Paulistas and Mineiros, who were at the forefront of the agitation.

  Late Thursday afternoon, November 14, 1889, Aristides Tavares saw both his cousins briefly at Clóvis Lima�
��s house.

  For the twenty-four-year-old Honôrio da Silva, there was only one option: rebellion. The young lieutenant was attached to the Eleventh Artillery Regiment, which had sworn a “blood pact” Monday night to carry out whatever order came from Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin Constant. The lieutenant-colonel himself and the officers around him had since engaged in an offensive to win over their superiors still loyal to the Crown. Together with the small group of republican politicians who supported an armed uprising, Benjamin Constant and his followers continued to spread rumors that various regiments were to be posted from the Corte. They embellished these with stories ranging from Dom Pedro’s having decided to abdicate in favor of Princess Isabel on his next birthday, to a warning that Prime Minister Ouro Prêto was about to order the arrest of Marshal Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca. Honôrio da Silva had taken Aristides aside just yesterday and placed a Smith & Wesson pistol in his hand. “Keep it with you,” he had said. “The Corte may look asleep to you, and maybe it is, but a few days and the Cariocas will wake. Ai, Jesus, yes! All Brazil will wake from the long sleep of royal oppression.”

  As the days passed, with meeting after meeting at Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca’s house, Clóvis Lima had moved to join the mutineers, though, like Marshal Deodoro himself, with a less final objective in mind. He stressed this to the two younger men when they met on the veranda briefly this Thursday afternoon, before Clóvis and his son went off to join their units.

  “Honôrio da Silva, for the sake of the nation, you’re being asked to perform one of a soldier’s saddest duties.”

  “I understand perfectly, senhor,” Honôrio said.

  “I wonder whether either of you understands this sacrifice. I hope you do. Marshal Deodoro has agreed to a show of force against Ouro Prêto. Ouro Prêto and his Frock Coats must go. Nothing more. The marshal will not countenance disloyalty toward His Majesty.”