The Independence of Brazil comprised a series of political events that occurred in 1821–1824, most of which involved disputes between Brazil and Portugal regarding the call for independence presented by the Brazilian Empire. It is celebrated on September 7, the anniversary of the September 7, 1822 date regent Prince Dom Pedro declared Brazil's independence from Portugal. Formal recognition came with a treaty signed by Brazil and Portugal in late 1825.
Origin of Brazil
Landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in Brazil, 1500.
Though the first settlement was founded in 1532, colonization was effectively started in 1534, when King John III divided the territory into fifteen hereditary captaincies. This arrangement proved problematic, however, and in 1549 the king assigned a Governor-General to administer the entire colony. The Portuguese assimilated some of the native tribes while others slowly disappeared in long wars or by European diseases to which they had no immunity.
By the mid-16th century, sugar had become Brazil's most important export due to the increasing international demand for sugar. To profit from the situation, by 1700, over 963,000 African slaves had been brought across the Atlantic to work in Brazil. More Africans were brought to Brazil up until that date than to all the other places in the Americas combined.[1]
Through wars against the French, the Portuguese slowly expanded their territory to the southeast, taking Rio de Janeiro in 1567, and to the northwest, taking São Luís in 1615. They sent military expeditions to the Amazon rainforest and conquered English and Dutch strongholds, founding villages and forts from 1669. In 1680 they reached the far south and founded Sacramento on the bank of the Rio de la Plata, in the Banda Oriental region (present-day Uruguay).
At the end of the 17th century, sugar exports started to decline but beginning in the 1690s, the discovery of gold by explorers in the region that would later be called Minas Gerais (General Mines) in current Mato Grosso, Goiás and the state of Minas Gerais, saved the colony from imminent collapse. From all over Brazil, as well as from Portugal, thousands of immigrants came to the mines.
The Spanish tried to prevent Portuguese expansion into the territory that belonged to them according to the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, and succeeded in conquering the Banda Oriental in 1777. However, this was in vain as the Treaty of San Ildefonso, signed in the same year, confirmed Portuguese sovereignty over all lands proceeding from its territorial expansion, thus creating most of the current Brazilian borders.
From colony to United Kingdom
Acclamation of King João VI of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 6 February 1818.
Path to Independence
Portuguese Cortes
The Portuguese Cortes.
The Portuguese military officers headquartered in Brazil were completely sympathetic to the constitutionalist movement in Portugal.[8] The main leader of the Portuguese officers, General Jorge Avilez, forced the prince to dismiss and banish from the country the ministers of Kingdom and Finance. Both were loyal allies of Pedro, who had become a pawn in the hands of the military.[9] The humiliation suffered by the prince, who swore he would never yield to the pressure of the military again, would have a decisive influence on his abdication ten years later.[10] Meanwhile, on September 30, 1821, the Cortes approved a decree that subordinated the governments of the Brazilian provinces directly to Portugal. Prince Pedro became for all purposes only the governor of the Rio de Janeiro Province.[11][12] Other decrees that came after ordered his return to Europe and also extinguished the judicial courts created by João VI in 1808.[13][14]
Dissatisfaction over the Cortes measures among most residents in Brazil (both Brazilian-born and Portuguese-born) rose to a point that it soon became publicly known.[11] Two groups that opposed the Cortes' actions to gradually undermine the Brazilian sovereignty appeared: Liberals led by Joaquim Gonçalves Ledo (which had the support of the Freemasons) and the Bonifacians led by José Bonifácio de Andrada. Both factions had nothing in common in their goals for Brazil, with the sole exception of their desire to keep the country united with Portugal as a sovereign monarchy.[15]
Avilez rebellion
Prince Pedro (right) orders Portuguese officer Jorge Avilez (left) to return to Portugal after his failed rebellion on February 8, 1822. José Bonifácio (in civilian clothes) can be seen next to the prince.
After Pedro's decision to defy the Cortes, around 2,000 men led by Jorge Avilez rioted before concentrating on mount Castelo, which was soon surrounded by 10,000 armed Brazilians, led by the Royal Police Guard.[20] Dom Pedro then "dismissed" the Portuguese commanding general and ordered him to remove his soldiers across the bay to Niterói, where they would await transport to Portugal.[21]
Jose Bonifácio was nominated minister of Kingdom and Foreign Affairs in 18 January 1822.[22] Bonifácio soon established a fatherlike relationship with Pedro, who began to consider the experienced statesman his greatest ally.[23] Gonçalves Ledo and the liberals tried to minimize the close relationship between Bonifácio and Pedro offering to the prince the title of Perpetual Defender of Brazil.[24][25] For the liberals, the meeting of a Constituent Assembly for Brazil was necessary, while the Bonifacians preferred that Pedro grant the constitution himself to avoid the possibility of similar anarchy to the one that occurred during the first years of the French Revolution.[24] The prince acquiesced to the liberals’ desires and signed a decree in 3 June 1822 calling for the election of the deputies that would gather in the Constituent and Legislative General Assembly in Brazil.[25][26]
From United Kingdom to Independent Empire
Prince Pedro is surrounded by a cheering crowd in São Paulo after giving the news of the Brazilian independence on 7 September 1822.
When arriving in the city of São Paulo on the night of September 7, 1822, Pedro and his fellow companions had spread the notice of the Brazilian independence from Portugal. The Prince was received with great popular celebration and was called “King of Brazil” but also “Emperor of Brazil”.[28][29] Pedro returned to Rio de Janeiro on September 14 and in the following days the liberals had spread pamphlets (written by Joaquim Gonçalves Ledo) that suggested the idea that the Prince should be acclaimed Constitutional Emperor.[28] On September 17 the President of the Municipal Chamber of Rio de Janeiro, José Clemente Pereira, sent to the other Chambers of the country the news that the Acclamation would occur in the anniversary of Pedro on October 12.[30] On the following day the new flag and arms of the independent Kingdom of Brazil were created (The Imperial flag and arms created later on October 12 were identical to those with the exception of the crown that from Royal became Imperial).[31]
Coronation of Emperor Pedro I on December 1, 1822.
The reason for the imperial title was that the title of king would symbolically mean a continuation of the Portuguese dynastic tradition and perhaps of the feared absolutism, while the title of emperor derived from popular acclamation as in Ancient Rome.[36][37] On December 1, 1822 (anniversary of the acclamation of João IV, first King of the House of Braganza) Pedro I was crowned and consecrated.[38]
Independence War
Main article: War of Independence of Brazil
The Brazilian Army entering in Salvador after the surrender of the Portuguese forces in 1823.
In the newly created Army and Navy the Brazilians had forced enlistment including foreign immigrants. They also made use of slaves in militias as well as freeing slaves to enlist them in army and navy. The land and naval combats covered the territories of Bahia, Cisplatina, Rio de Janeiro and the vice-kingdom of Grão-Pará. Maranhão and Pernambuco (which then embraced also what today are the States of Ceará, Piauí and Rio Grande do Norte) were also places where fighting occurred.
Fights between militias took the streets of the main cities of the mentioned territories in 1822[39] and in land, despite the arrival of additional forces from Portugal along the year of 1822 but the last quarter; the Portuguese forces although had neutralized the home-born militians in some cities like Salvador, Montevideo and São Luís, failed to defeat the militias in most of cities as well the guerrilla forces in the country side and when came 1823, while the Brazilian army had enlarged replacing its losses of men and supplies; the remaining Portuguese forces, already then on the defensive, were shortened of men and means, found themselves compelled to restrict their sphere of action to resist in some province capitals, that were also strategic sea ports, as for example Belém beyond the already mentioned Montevideo, Salvador and São Luís do Maranhão.
At sea, the Brazilian action was led by Thomas Cochrane. There was a shaky beginning due to sabotage done by the significant number of Portuguese in the crews. By 1823 the navy was reformed and the Portuguese members were replaced by Brazilians (released slaves and white men under forced enlistment) and foreign mercenaries (British and Americans). The Brazilian navy succeeded in clearing the coast of the Portuguese presence and isolating the last Portuguese land troops. By the end of that year they had pursued the remaining naval colonial forces across the Atlantic as far as the shore of Portugal.
There are still today no reliable statistics[40] related to the numbers of, for example, the total of the war casualties. However based upon historical registration and contemporary reports of some battles of this war as well as upon the admitted numbers in similar fights that happened in these times around the globe, and considering how long the Brazilian independence war lasted (22 months), estimates of all killed in action on both sides are placed from around 5,700 to 6,200.
