Brazil

- First major step toward independence in 1808

Formal national independence came in 1822 when Dom Pedro rejected a
demand that he return to Portugal and issued the famous Cry of Ipiranga:
Independence or Death!

Dom Pedro, Emperor
- Dom Pedro acted with advice and support from the Brazilian Aristocracy to
preserve the autonomy Brazil had enjoyed since 1808
Brazil made a transition to independence with comparatively little
disruption and bloodshed
Colonial Social structure:
o Monarchy
o Slavery
o Large landed estates
o Monoculture
o Inefficient agricultural system
o Highly stratified society
o Free population 90% illiterate
The constituent assembly he summoned in 1823 drafted a document that
placed excessive limits on his power
New constitution promulgated by imperial proclamation
This constitution, under which Brazil was governed until the fall of the
monarchy in 1889, concentrated great power in the hands of the monarch
Two-chamber Parliament:
o A lifetime Senate: the members were chosen by the emperor
o Chamber of Deputies: elected only by voters who met certain
property and income requirements
The emperor had the right to appoint and dismiss ministers and
summon or dissolve parliament at will
He also appointed the provincial governors or presidents
- Resentment over Dom Pedros right-handed dissolution of the constituent
assembly was particularly strong in Pernamcubo, a center of republican and
federalist ferment
1824, a group of rebels proclaimed the creation of Confederation of the
Equator that would unite the six northern provinces under a republican
government
The emperors foreign policies contributed to this growing discontent
- 1826, a treaty with Great Britain that obligated Brazil to end the slave traffic
by 1830
o Despite this band and the British Navys efforts to seize the slave
ships, the trade continued with the full knowledge and approval of the
Brazilian Government
- Exaltados (radical liberals) placed themselves at the head of the revolt and
called for the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a federal
republic
- Eliminating the dominant influence of Portuguese merchants and
Portuguese-born courtiers under Emperor Pedro I, completed the transition
to full Brazilian Independence

Regency, Revolt, and a Boy Emperor
- Revolution had been the work of radical liberals, who viewed Dom Pedros
downfall as the first step toward the establishment of a federal republic, but
the moderates enjoyed its fruits
o Dom Pedros departure was a victory for these moderates
First step, parliament appointed a three-man regency composed of moderate
liberals to govern for the child emperor until he reached the age of eighteen
Another measure created a national guard to repress urban mobs and slave
revolts
After a three year debate, parliament approved the Additional Act of 1834,
which gave the provinces elective legislative assemblies with broad powers,
including control over local budgets and taxes
o Centralism was not abandoned
- Regency government struggles against a rash of revolts, mostly in the
northern provinces, where the economy suffered from a loss of markets for
their staple crops, sugar and cotton
The republican and Separatist Sabinada revolt in Bahia (1837-1838)
mobilized the large majority of black and mixed-race people who had
long advocated slaverys abolition
Another measure of the regencys fear of these abolitionist rebellions was
it 1834 decree of the death penalty for insurgent slaves
- Revolt that broke out in 1835 in the province of Rio Grande do Sul
o An intense regionalism, resentment over taxes and unpopular
governors imposed by the central government, and the strength of
republican sentiment all induced the revolt that established the
independent republic of Rio Grande in 1836
- The inability of imperial troops to quell the Rio Grande revolt further
weakened the regency government
Mixed-race leader, Raimundo Gomes, proclaimed equal rights for all
people of colour, cabras (dark mulatto), and caboclos
The revolts increasingly radical, egalitarian program reflected the broad
cross-class, multiracial nature of its rebel army, which government
officials confirmed
Military commander Luis Alves de Lima; a rebel who claimed that he did
not want to ally himself to the insurrected negroes, but now, without
resources and always persecuted, tries to attract them.
To preserve their power and privilege elites used the issue of race
promising amnesty to all free rebels in exchange for their agreement to
hunt down runaway slaves.
According to Lima, in order to avoid further insurrections, his amnesty
proposal aimed to excite the hate between slaves and free rebels.
Moderate liberals sought political accommodation with a Conservative
Party that preferred to strengthen the central government
On such essential issues as the monarchy, slavery, and the maintenance of
the status quo in general, these liberals and conservatives saw eye to eye
The Rio Grande experiment posed an especially serious threat to
monarchy and slavery
In 1804, the two legislative chambers orchestrated a parliamentary coup
dtat and proclaimed the fourteen-year-old Dom Pedro Emperor
- As a result of internal squabbles and the cessation for aid from friendly
Uruguay after Argentina invaded it in February 1843, the situation of the
republic became extremely difficult
o A peace was negotiated with Rio de Janeiro and signed in February
1845
Extended amnesty to all rebels but annulled all laws of the
republican regime
- The large-scale revolt in the series that shook Brazil in the 1830s and the
1840s was the uprising of 1848 in Pernambuco
- The surface stability of Brazilian political life in the decades after 1850 rested
on the prosperity of the coffee-growing zones of Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo,
and Minas Gerais
- English pressure on Brazil to enforce the Anglo-Brazilian treaty banning the
importation of slaves into Brazil after November 7,1831.
o Before 1850: more than fifty thousand slaves a year were brought to
Brazil
o Because of the high mortality among slaves due to poor food, harsh
working conditions, and other negative factors, natural reproduction
could not maintain the slave population, which assured the slave
systems eventual demise
- Criticism of slavery was increasingly joined with criticism of the emperor,
who was censured for his cautious posture on slavery
o Although the monarchy believed it might survive the abolition of
slavery, it greatly feared the growing independent organizations of
blacks, mulattos, caboclos, etc. that accompanied abolitionism
- In 1869 the Reform Club, a group of militant Liberals, issued a manifesto
demanding restrictions on the powers of the emperor and grant of freedom
to the newborn children slaves
o The crisis of slavery was fast becoming a crisis of the Brazilian Empire



Antislavery Movement
- Dom Pedro, personally opposed to slavery, was caught in a crossfire between
slave owners who were determined to postpone the inevitable as long as
possible and a growing number of liberal leaders, intellectuals, urban middle-
class groups, and free people of color all of whom demanded emancipation
Rio Branco Law, 1871: this measure freed all newborn children of slave
women but obligated their masters to care for them until they reached
the age of eight
Owners could either release the children to the government in return
for an indemnity or retain them as laborers until they reached the age
of twenty-one
Tactical retreat designed to put off a final solution of the slavery
problem
- To new urban groups, slavery was an anachronism, glaringly incompatible
with modernity
- The abolitionist movement produced leaders of remarkable intellectual and
moral stature
One was Joaquin Nabuco, the son of a distinguished liberal statesman of
the empire, whose eloquent dissection and indictment of slavery, o
abolicionismo, had a profound impact on its readers
Mulatto journalist, Jose de Patrocinio, a master propagandist notes for his
fiery, biting style
Mulatto, Andre Reboucas, an engineer and teacher whose intellectual gifts
won him the respect and friendship of the emperor, was a leading
organizer of the movement
Abolition, they hoped, would pave the way for the attainment of other
goal: land reform, public education, and political democracy
- Parliament adopted another measure on September 28,1885, which liberated
all slaves when they reached the age of sixty but required them to continue to
serve their master for three years and forbade them to leave their place of
residence for five years
Few slaves lived beyond the age of sixty-five, implied little change in the
status of the vast majority of slaves
Imperial government also promised to purchase the freedom of the
remaining slaves in fourteen years
- Abolitionist spurned all compromise solutions and demanded immediate,
unconditional emancipation
Abolitionists who organized an underground railway that wan from Sao
Paulo to Ceara, where slavery had ended
- February 1887, Sao Paulo liberated all slaves in the city with funds raised by
popular subscription
o The flow of immigrants into Sao Paulo rose from 6,600 in 1885 to over
32,000 in 1887 and to 90,000 in 1888
o Coffee productions reached record level
- May 1888, Brazil finally abolished slavery, this decision was not the climax of
gradual process of slaverys decline and slave owners peaceful acceptance of
the inevitable
- Free from the burdens of slavery and aided by the continuance of very high
coffee prices all over the world (until about 1896) Brazil made more
economic progress in a few years than it had during the almost seven
decades of imperial rule
o Relationships between former masters and slaves in many places
remained largely unchanged; racist traditions and the economic and
political power of the fazendeiros gave them almost absolute control
over their former slaves
o Denied land and education, freedmen were now compelled by the
whip of hunger to labor at the hardest, most poorly paid jobs
- In a society in which, according to the 1872 census, only 16 percent of the
people were literate, this legislation disfranchised 99 percent of eligible
voters and set the stage for a century of covert, race0based discrimination