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Brazilian Empire
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The Empire of Brazil was a political entity that comprised present-day Brazil under the rule of Emperors Pedro I and his son Pedro II. Founded in 1822, it was replaced by a republic in 1889.
As a result of the Napoleonic occupation of Portugal, the Portuguese royal family, the Braganzas , went into exile in Brazil, the most important of the Portuguese colonies. What followed was a period when Brazil actually became the capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, a whole new status, and enjoyed self-government under the Braganza dynasty, with no reference to the authorities in Lisbon.
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The Empire of Brazil was a political entity that comprised present-day Brazil under the rule of Emperors Pedro I and his son Pedro II. Founded in 1822, it was replaced by a republic in 1889.
As a result of the Napoleonic occupation of Portugal, the Portuguese royal family, the Braganzas , went into exile in Brazil, the most important of the Portuguese colonies. What followed was a period when Brazil actually became the capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, a whole new status, and enjoyed self-government under the Braganza dynasty, with no reference to the authorities in Lisbon. This nurtured a distaste for the idea of returning to status quo ante upon the overthrow of Napoleon's influence over Portugal. Therefore, Brazil came to be independent of Portugal, albeit under the rule of a member of the Portuguese royal family.
After its independence from the Portuguese on September 7, 1822, Brazil became a monarchy, the Empire of Brazil, which lasted until the establishment of the republican government on November 15, 1889. Two emperors occupied the throne in that period: Pedro I, from 1822 to 1831; and Pedro II, from 1831 to 1889. Also, King João VI of Portugal held the title of Emperor of Brazil as stipulated by the treaty recognizing Brazilian independence.
The end of the Empire in 1889 and the foundation of the republic was a reactionary development following the abolition of slavery in 1888, which had created a serious threat to the interests of the economic and political oligarchy.
History of the Brazilian Empire
Brazilian independence
Pedro as regent
After João VI returned to Portugal in 1821, his heir-apparent Pedro became regent of the Kingdom of Brazil, with an informal understanding — known as the Bragança Agreement that he was to take the crown if Brazil came to be independent. He meant to rule frugally and started by cutting his own salary, centralizing scattered government offices, and selling off most of the royal horses and mules. He issued decrees that eliminated the royal salt tax, to spur the output of hides and dried beef; he forbade arbitrary seizure of private property, required a judge's warrant for arrests of freemen, and banned secret trials, torture, and other indignities. He also sent elected deputies to the Portuguese Assembly (Cortes). However, slaves continued to be bought and sold and disciplined with force, despite his assertion that their blood was the same color as his own blood.
In September 1821, the Portuguese Assembly, with only a portion of the Brazilian delegates present, voted to abolish the Kingdom of Brazil and the royal agencies in Rio de Janeiro, thus subordinating all provinces of Brazil directly to Lisbon. Accordingly, troops were sent to Brazil, and all Brazilian units were placed under Portuguese command. This marked the beginning of the small-scaled Brazilian War of Independence.
In January 1822, tension between Portuguese troops and the Luso-Brazilians (Brazilians of Portuguese ancestry) turned violent when Pedro, who had been ordered by the Assembly to return to Lisbon, refused to comply and vowed to stay. He had been moved by petitions from Brazilian towns, and by the argument that his departure and the dismantling of the central government would trigger separatist movements.
Pedro formed a new government headed by José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva of São Paulo. This former royal official and professor of science at Coimbra was crucial to the subsequent direction of events and is regarded as one of the formative figures of Brazilian nationalism, indeed, as the "Patriarch of Independence".
The atmosphere was so charged that Dom Pedro sought assurances of asylum on a British ship in case he lost the looming confrontation; he also sent his family to safety out of the city.
Turmoil in the provinces
After Pedro's decision to defy the Côrtes, the "lead feet", as the Brazilians called the Portuguese troops, rioted before concentrating on Cerro Castello, which was soon surrounded by thousands of armed Brazilians. 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. On the following days, the Portuguese commander delayed embarkation, hoping that expected reinforcements would arrive. However, the reinforcements that arrived off Rio de Janeiro on March 5, 1822, were not allowed to land. Instead, they were given supplies for the voyage back to Portugal. This round had been won without bloodshed.
Blood had been shed in Recife in the Province of Pernambuco, when the Portuguese garrison there had been forced to depart in November 1821. In mid-February 1822, Brazilians in Bahia revolted against the Portuguese forces there, but were driven into the countryside, where they began guerrilla operations, signaling that the struggle in the north would not be without loss of life and property.
To secure Minas Gerais and São Paulo, where there were no Portuguese troops but where there were doubts about independence, Dom Pedro engaged in some royal populism. Towns in Minas Gerais had expressed their loyalty at the time of Pedro's vow to remain, save for the junta in Ouro Prêto, the provincial capital. Pedro realized that unless Minas Gerais were solidly with him, he would be unable to broaden his authority to other provinces. With only a few companions and no ceremony or pomp, Pedro plunged into Minas Gerais on horseback in late March 1822, receiving enthusiastic welcomes and allegiances everywhere.
Defender of Brazil
Back in Rio de Janeiro on May 13, he was proclaimed the "Perpetual Defender of Brazil" by the São Paulo legislative assembly and shortly thereafter called a Constituent Assembly (Assembléia Constituinte) for the next year. To deepen his base of support, he joined the Freemasons, who, led by José Bonifácio Andrada e Silva, were pressing for parliamentary government and independence. More confident, in early August he called on the Brazilian deputies in Lisbon to return, decreed that Portuguese forces in Brazil should be treated as enemies. He had already decreed that no decree from the Government of Lisbon would be carried out by officers in Brazil without his consent.
São Paulo and Ipiranga
Seeking to duplicate his triumph in Minas Gerais, Prince Pedro rode to São Paulo in August to assure himself of support there. It was on that trip that he began a disastrous affair with Domitila, Marchioness of Santos that later weakened his government. By that time, relations between Portugal and Brazil were so bad that Prince Pedro had already issued two manifestos, the "Letter to the Peoples of Brazil" and the "Letter to the Friendly Nations", that read like a declaration of independence. Returning from an excursion to Santos, Pedro received messages from his wife and from Andrada e Silva that the Côrtes had declared his government traitorous and were dispatching more troops. Pedro then had to choose between returning to Portugal in disgrace, or breaking the last ties with Portugal. In a famous scene by the Ipiranga River on September 7, 1822, Prince Pedro, riding his horse, tore the Portuguese blue and white insignia from his uniform, drew his sword, and swore in the presence of his guard of honour: "By my blood, by my honour, and by God: I will make Brazil free." Then he cried "It is time! Independence or Death! We are separated from Portugal". Those words constituted Brazil's Proclamation of Independence. The "Independence or Death" cry would become the motto of the Brazilian emancipation.
On 12 October 1822, his 24th birthday, Dom Pedro was acclaimed as the first Emperor of Brazil. He was crowned on December 1, 1822.
Military consolidation
To consolidate his claim, Pedro — now Emperor Pedro I of Brazil — hired Admiral Thomas Cochrane, one of Britain's most successful naval commanders in the Napoleonic Wars and recently commander of the Chilean naval forces against Spain. He also hired a number of Admiral Cochrane's officers, and the French General Pierre Labatut, who had fought in Colombia. These men were to lead the fight to drive the Portuguese out of Bahia, Maranhão, and Pará, and to force those areas to replace Lisbon's rule with that of Rio de Janeiro. Money from customs at Rio de Janeiro's port and local donations outfitted the army and the nine-vessel fleet. The use of foreign mercenaries brought needed military skills. The much-feared Cochrane secured Maranhão with a single warship, despite the Portuguese military's attempt to disrupt the economy and society with a scorched-earth campaign and with promises of freedom for the slaves. By mid-1823 the contending forces numbered between 10,000 and 20,000 Portuguese, some of whom were veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, versus 12,000 to 14,000 Brazilians, mostly in militia units from the Northeast.
Brazilian independence is popularly believed to have come without bloodshed. In fact, although both sides avoided massive set battles, they did engage in guerrilla tactics, demonstrations, and countermoves. There is little information on casualties, but the fighting provided a female martyr in Mother Joana Angélica, who was bayoneted to death by Portuguese troops invading her convent in Bahia; and an example of female grit in Maria Quitéria de Jesus, who, masquerading as a man, joined the Imperial army and achieved distinction in several battles.
International recognition
The United Kingdom and Portugal eventually recognized Brazilian independence by signing a treaty on August 29, 1825. Until then, the Brazilians feared that Portugal would resume its attack. Portuguese retribution, however, came in a financial form. Secret codicils of the treaty with Portugal required that Brazil assume payment of 1.4 million pounds sterling owed to Britain and indemnify Dom João VI and other Portuguese for losses totaling 600,000 pounds sterling. Brazil also renounced future annexation of Portuguese African colonies, and in a side treaty with Britain, promised to end the slave trade. Neither of these measures pleased the slave-holding planters.
The reign of Pedro I, 1822-31
From Kingdom to Empire
When arriving in the city of São Paulo in 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”. Pedro returned to Rio de Janeiro in September 14 and in the following days the freemasons had spread pamphlets (written by Joaquin Gonçalves Ledo) that suggested the idea that the Prince should be acclaimed Constitucional Emperor. In September 17 the President of the Municipal Chamber (City Hall) 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 in October 12. In the following day the new flag and arms of the independent Kingdom of Brazil were created (The Imperial flag and arms created later in October 12 were identical to these with the exception of the crown that from Royal became Imperial).
The official separation would only occur in September 22, 1822 in a letter written by Pedro to John VI. In it, Pedro still calls himself Prince Regent and his father is considered the King of the independent Brazil. The animosity between the Bonifacians and the Liberals only grew after the formal declaration of Independence. Both groups had conflicting interests and perceived each other as an inevitable threat. The Bonifacians defended the existence of a strong, but constitutional and centralized monarchy (thus to prevent the possibility of provincial seccessionism); and intended to abolish the traffic of slaves and also slavery itself; to make a land reform; and economically develop the country free of foreign loans.
The Bonifacians believed that that was a historical moment where they could cure the vices of the Brazilian society recreating the nation. Brazil could thus become an equal nation where all segments of the society (the native americans and blacks also) could be part of it. However, Jose Bonifácio opposed democracy as he believed that the Brazilians were not yet prepared for it. He feared that it could become a demagogy. Bonifácio defended the idea that the aristocracy had the moral obligation of civilizing the remaining less educated population. The end of the slavery would be the first step for it as it was a necessary requirement for the creation of a modern State. The Liberals, on the other hand, desired exactly the opposite of the Bonifacians. As part of the provincial gentry formed by landowners, farmers and rich business men that owned slavery, the Liberals wanted a democracy where only they could be part of it without harming the social hierarchy and a federal country where they could rule their provinces without bothering with a central power interference. Thus, the Bonifacians ideal was a serious threat to their interests.
The excuse for the open conflict between both the groups appeared when the liberal João Soares Lisboa published in a newspaper the allegation that Prince Pedro had affirmed that he would accept the republican government if the Brazilians wanted it. Jose Bonifácio considered subversive the attitude of the journalist and ordered him to leave Rio de Janeiro. He also accused the Liberals of conspiring against the Monarchy. In September 21 Bonifácio convinced Pedro to forbid the freemasons meetings in the Masonic Lodges while the investigation on a possible republican conspiracy was occurring. The Prince did not approve the measures of Bonifácio as he considering them arbitrary and not only he pardoned João Soares Lisboa but also allowed the full functioning of the Masonic Lodges only four days later.
In October 12, 1822, in the Field of Santana (later known as Field of the Acclamation) Pedro was acclaimed Constitucional Emperor and Perpetual Defender of Brazil. It was at the same time the beginning of Pedro´s reign and also of the Brazilian Empire. However, the Emperor left clear that although he accepted the emperorship, if João VI returned to Brazil he would step aside from the throne in favor of his father. The reason for the imperial title was derived from the fact that King would symbolically mean a continuation of the Portuguese dynastic tradition and perhaps of the feared absolutism. While Emperor derived from the popular acclamation such as in Ancient Rome. Thus, the constitutional aspect of the Brazilian monarchy with the social pact between the Nation and the Emperor would be strengthened.
Since the end of the persecution initiated after the release of the article written by João Soares Lisboa, the Liberals (led by Gonçalves Ledo) pressured Pedro I to dismiss Bonifácio and his cabinet. In October 27 José Bonifácio was fired, but a popular manifestation made Pedro (with great satisfaction) to call him back. José Bonifácio did not lose any time and in November 2 he initiated a judicial inquiry (that would be known as “Bonifácia”) against the Liberals that were accused of “conspiracy, plotting and demagogy”. All the ones accused of conspiracy were imprisoned with the exception of Gonçalves Ledo, João Soares Lisboa and a few others that escaped to Buenos Aires. With his enemies defeated, the Bonifacians believed that they were finally free to initiate their projects of government. In December 1, 1822 (anniversary of the acclamation of John IV, first King of the House of Braganza) Pedro I was crowned and consecrated.
Imperial Constitution
In March 3, 1823, the Constituent and Legislative General Assembly of the Empire of Brazil initiated its legislature with the intention to promulgate the first political Constitution of the country. Its members (called deputies) were adepts of the Liberalism in their majority, congregating “what it had of better and of more representative in Brazil”. They were indirectly elected by censitary suffrage and none belonged to political parties (there wasn´t any at the time). It had, however, factions in it: the Bonifacians, the Liberals and the Absolutists. These last ones were Portuguese who defended a centralized and absolutist monarchy and also the maintenance of their economic and social privileges. Ideologically, the Emperor identified himself with the Bonifacians in matters related to their politicalm social and economic projects. Therefore he did not have interest nor in acting as an absolute monarch much less in serving as “a cardboard figure in the government”, as the Absolutists and Liberals desired, respectively.
The project of the Constitution of 1823 was written by Antônio Carlos de Andrada and suffered strong influence from the French and Norwegian charters. It was sent to the Assembly where its members initiated the works for its promulgation. Since the beginning of the legislative work the Liberals desired at any cost to knock down the cabinet presided by José Bonifácio de Andrada. They wanted to avenge the persecutions that they suffered during the “Bonifácia” that occured in the previous year. The Absolutists, on the other hand, saw their interests threatened when José Bonifácio emitted two decrees: one in November 12, 1822 and another in December 11, 1822. In the first one he eliminated the Portuguese privileges and in the second one he arrested the goods, products and properties from all Portuguese who had supported Portugal during the Brazilian independence. Although with many ideological differences, the Absolutists and the Liberals allied themselves in order to remove from power their common enemy. Both groups held most of the seats in the Assembly and signed a petition to request the dismissal of José Bonifácio´s Cabinet. Without any choice except to enter in an unnecessary conflict against the Assembly, Peter I so did it.
The Emperor appointed the Liberal José Joaquim Carneiro de Campos to preside the new Cabinet. Consequently the Bonifacians became the opposition and created newspapers to attack their enemies in the cabinet and also in the Assembly. Small incidents aggravated the dispute for power in it. In one of them, the Liberal Carneiro da Cunha accused the Bonifacians of being behind the physical violence suffered by the Liberal journalist Luis Augusto May, editor of the periodic Malagueta ("Chili pepper") that criticized the José Bonifácio´s Cabinet. Antônio Carlos de Andrada almost punched Carneiro da Cunha.
The crisis became more serious when an event that normally would be treated by the Justice ended up being used for political ends. A Brazilian apothecary suffered physical aggressions from two Portuguese officers who served in the Brazilian Army that erroneously believed that he had been the author of an injurious article to their honor. The Bonifacians used to their advantage the chance to allege that the aggression suffered by the apothecary was in fact an attempted against honor of Brazil and of the Brazilian people. Antônio Carlos de Andrada and Martim Francisco de Andrada were taken on the shoulders of crowd and it was followed by a wave of lusophobia in Rio de Janeiro. Riots were incitated all over the city by the factions against their political enemies. The members of the Assembly did not pay much attention in the project of the Constitution, but instead on taking down their enemies. They had only analyzed 24 articles of a total of 272.
The military officers felt attacked by the insults directed to them and to the Emperor by the Bonifacians and demanded their punishment. The monarch feared that Portuguese officers (the majority in the officer staff) would cause problems and ordered the troops to leave Rio de Janeiro and camp in the São Cristóvão Field. The minister Francisco Vilela Barbosa, representing the cabinet, went to the Assembly to explain the reason of the movement of the troops. The congregated members of the Assembly decided to debate the matter and remained in session during the dawn. But in the following day when Vilela Barbosa returned to give more explanations, some Bonifacians deputies cried out demanding that Peter I should be declared an outlaw. After the Emperor heard about it he signed a decree dissolving the Assembly (something that it had the right to do). Six deputies, including the three Andrada brothers, were banished to France. However, they received pension from the Brazilian Government as long as they lived there. The Liberals that were persecuted during the "Bonifácia" were pardoned and Gonçalves Ledo, João Soares Lisboa and others returned to Brazil. Also, that was not the end of the members (deputies) of the Assembly: 33 would later become senators, 28 ministers of State, 18 presidents of provinces, seven members of the first State Council and four regents.
In November 13, 1823, Pedro I, who had no desire to reign as an absolutist monarch, puted the newly stabilished State Council in charge of writing a new project of Constitution that was finished in only fifteen days. It was a “remarkable Council” in the opinion of historian Ronaldo Vainfas. The State Council was formed by ten famous Brazilian-born jurists, such as: José Joaquim Carneiro de Campos (later Marquis of Caravelas and the main author of the new Charter), Francisco Vilela Barbosa (later the first Marquis of Paranaguá), João Severiano Maciel da Costa (the ex-president of the dissolved Constituent Assembly), Manuel Jacinto Nogueira da Gama (later the Marquis of Baependi), Luís José de Carvalho e Melo (later the Viscount of Cachoeira), amongst others.
The Council used the project written by Antonio Carlos de Andrada as base to a new Charter. After finishing it, a copy was sent to all Municipal Chambers (City Councils) to vote if they accepted or not that the new Charter should be used as a project to be promulgated by another Constituent Assembly. However, some Municipal Chambers suggested that instead it should become immediately the Brazilian Constitution. After that, the vast majority of the Municipal Chambers (composed by councilmen elected by the Brazilian people as their representatives) voted in favor of its instantly adoption as the Constitution of the Brazilian Empire. Very few voted against it. The first Brazilian Constitution was then promulgated by Peter I and solemnly sworn in the Cathedral of the Empire in March 25, 1824.
The Confederation of the Equator
The dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was well received in Pernambuco. The two greatest liberal leaders in the province, Manuel de Carvalho Pais de Andrade and Joaquim do Amor Divino Caneca (better known as Friar Mug) supported it and blamed the Bonifacians for the act. Both, as well as other coreligionists, were republicans who participated in the revolt of 1817 and had been pardoned. They had accepted the monarchy for believing that at least there would be more autonomy for the provinces. The promulgation of the Constitution in 1824, with its highly centralized regimen, frustrated their desire. Pernambuco was divided between two political factions: a monarquist, led by Francisco Paes Barreto and another republican one, led by Manuel de Carvalho Pais de Andrade. The province was governed by Paes Barreto, who was appointed President by Peter I, in accordance with the law promulgated by the Constituent Assembly in October 20, 1823 (and that would be later kept by the Constitution). In December 13, 1823, Paes Barreto resigned under the pressure of the Liberals that illegally elected in his place Paes de Andrade. Neither Peter I nor the Government were informed of the election and requested the return of Paes Barreto to the office, something that was ignored by the Liberals.
The warships Niterói and Piranga led by the British Captain John Taylor were sent to Recife to compel the Liberals to obey the law without success. The Liberals vehemently refused to bring back Paes Barreto and boasted: “We shall die! Let Pernambuco be destroyed! There will be war!”. Friar Mug, José da Natividade Saldanha and João Soares Lisboa (that had recently returned from Buenos Aires) were the intellectuals behind the rebellion and desired to preserve the interests of the gentry that they represented. Although Recife (or to be more precise, the Liberals) had clearly rebelled, Peter I tried to prevent a conflict that he considered unnecessary and appointed a new president the province, José Carlos Mayrink da Silva Ferrão. Mayrink was natural of the province of Minas Gerais, but was related to the Liberals and it could act as a neutral entity to conciliate the two local factions. However, the Liberals did not accept Mayrink, which made him return to Rio de Janeiro. The rumors of a great Portuguese naval attack (Brazil was still in war for its independence) compelled John Taylor to leave Recife.
In July 2, 1824, only one day after the departure of Taylor, Manuel Paes de Andrade made use of the chance and announced the independence of Pernambuco. Paes de Andrade sent invitations to the others provinces of the north and northeast Brazil so that they could join Pernambuco and form the Confederation of the Equator. In thesis, the new republican State would be formed by the provinces of Grand Pará (current Amazonas, Roraima, Rondônia and Pará), Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Alagoas, Sergipe, Paraíba, Pernambuco and Bahia. However, none of them adhered the seccessionist revolt, with the exception of a few villages in southern Ceará and in Paraíba. However, in Ceará the situation became more serious with the deposition of the President Pedro José da Costa Barros that was substituted by the confederate Tristão Gonçalves de Alencar Araripe. The other cities and villages of the province refused to accept the act and counterattacked. Alencar Araripe left to the countryside where he tried to defeat the legalist troops. While he was absent the capital of the province, Fortaleza, reaffirmed its loyalty to the Empire. In Pernambuco, Paes de Andrade could only count with Olinda, as the remaining of the province did not join the revolt. The confederate leader prepared his troops for the inevitable attack from the central Government and recruted by force even children and old men. Peter I, after knowing of the secessionist revolt, spoke: “What are the demands of the insults from Pernambuco? Certainly a punishment, and such a punishment that it will serve as an example for the future”.
Paes Barreto gathered himself troops to quell the revolt but was defeated which made him keep his forces in the countryside waiting for reinforcements. In August 2 the Emperor sent a naval division commanded by the Admiral Thomas Cochrane, composed of a ship of the line, a brig, a corvette and two transports and also 1,200 soldiers led by Brigadier General Francisco de Lima e Silva. The troops disembarked in Maceió, capital of Alagoas, from where they travelled by land towards Pernambuco. The legalist forces soon met with Paes Barreto and his 400 men who joined the march. Throughout the way, the army was strengthened by militians that increased their numbers to 3,500 soldiers. Most of the population of Pernambuco, that lived in the countryside, including partisans of Paes Barreto and the neutral or indifferent to the disputes between both factions, remained faithful to the monarchy.
Meanwhile, Cochrane, that was already making a siege by sea to Recife, tried to convince Paes de Andrade to surrender and thus to prevent unnecessary deaths. Andrade arrogantly refused the offer alleging that he prefered to die fighting “in the field of glory”. In September 12, the army led by Brigadier General Lima e Silva and Paes Barreto attacked Recife. Manuel Paes de Andrade, who had sworn that would fight to death ran away secretly with José da Natividade Saldanha without informing his companions and departed in a British ship. The rebels, without leadership and unmotivated, were completely defeated five days later in Olinda. A few led by Friar Mug managed to escape towards Ceará. They believed that they would be able to join the confederates in that province. Few weeks later they were defeated by legalist troops. Some died, such as João Soares Lisboa and Alencar Araripe (murdered by his own men) while others were imprisioned, such as Friar Mug. The rebels in Paraíba did not fare better and were quickly overhelmed by troops of the province without the aid of the central Government. The legal persecution against the confederates initiated in October 1824 and lasted until April 1825. Of the hundreds who participated in the three provinces rebellion only fifteen were condemned to death, amongst them, Friar Mug. All the others were pardoned by Peter I in March 7, 1825.
The Independence of Uruguay
In 1825, war flared again over Argentina's determination to annex the Cisplatine Province (present-day Uruguay, on the East bank of the Plata River). The empire could little afford the troops, some of whom were recruited in Ireland and Germany, or the sixty warships needed to blockade the Río de la Plata. A loan from London bankers was expended by 1826, and Pedro had to call the General Assembly to finance the war. The blockade raised objections from the United States and Britain, and defeats on land in 1827 made it necessary to negotiate an end to the US$30 million Argentina-Brazil War. The war, at least, left Uruguay independent instead of an Argentine province. That was possible because, following the wars lead by José Gervasio Artigas against the centralist government of Buenos Aires, many people neither wanted to submit to Buenos Aires, nor to Brazil. In June 1828, harsh discipline and xenophobia provoked a mutiny of mercenary troops in Rio de Janeiro; the Irish were shipped home and the Germans sent to the South. The army was reduced to 15,000 members, and the anti-slavery Pedro, now without military muscle, faced a Parliament controlled by slave-owners and their allies.
The slavery question
As coffee exports rose steadily, so did the numbers of imported slaves; in Rio de Janeiro alone, they soared from 26,254 in 1825 to 43,555 in 1828. In 1822, about 30%, or one million, of Brazil's population consisted of African-born or -descended slaves.
Pedro had written that slavery was a "cancer that is gnawing away at Brazil" and that no one had the right to enslave another. He wanted to abolish slavery, but his own liberal constitution gave the law-making authority to the slavocrat-controlled Parliament. In Brazil, liberal principles and political formulas were given special meaning. The language of social contract, popular sovereignty, supremacy of law, universal rights, division of powers, and representative government was stripped of its revolutionary content and applied only to a select, privileged white minority.
After 1826, the slavocrat agenda was to control the court system; to provide harsh punishments for slave rebellion, but mild ones for white revolt; to reduce the armed forces, cleansing them of foreigners unsympathetic to slavery; to keep tariffs low and eliminate the Bank of Brazil in order to deny the central government the ability to stimulate a rival, finance-based industrial capitalism; and to shape immigration policy in such a way as to encourage servile labour instead of independent farmers or craftsmen. Led by Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos of Minas Gerais in the assembly, slavocrats argued that slavery was not demoralizing, that foreign capital and technology would not help Brazil, and that railroads would only rust. Others, such as Nicolau de Campos Vergueiro of São Paulo, argued in favour of replacing slavery with free European immigrants. In the end, the Parliament established a contract system that was little better than slavery. There would be no liberal empire. Laws and decrees unacceptable to the slavocrats simply would not take effect, such as the order in 1829 forbidding slave ships to sail for Africa. These items of the slavocrat agenda were the roots of the regional rebellions of the nineteenth century.
In 1835, the Malê Revolt, perhaps the most significant slave rebellion in Brazil, took place in the city of Salvador da Bahia.
Turmoil and abdication
After Dom João's death (1826), despite Pedro's renunciation of his right to the Portuguese throne in favor of his daughter, Brazilian nativist radicals falsely accused the emperor of plotting to overthrow the constitution and to proclaim himself the ruler of a reunited Brazil and Portugal. They raised tensions by provoking street violence against the Portuguese of Rio de Janeiro and agitated for a federalist monarchy that would give the provinces self-government and administrative autonomy. Brazil's fate was in the hands of a few people concentrated in the capital who spread false stories and undermined discipline in the army and police. It would not be the last time that events in Rio de Janeiro would shape the future. When Pedro dismissed his cabinet in April 1831, street and military demonstrators demanded its reinstatement in violation of his constitutional prerogatives. He refused, saying: "I will do anything for the people but nothing [forced] by the people." With military units assembled on the Campo de Sant'Anna, an assembly ground in Rio de Janeiro, and people in the streets shouting "death to the tyrant", he backed down. Failing to form a new cabinet, he abdicated in favour of his five-year-old son Pedro (who thus became Emperor Pedro II of Brazil), and left Brazil as he had arrived — on a British warship.
The reign of Pedro II, 1831-89
The Regency Era, 1831-40
Unrest in the provinces
From 1831 to 1840, the country was ruled by three appointed regents, in the young Emperor's name. This was a period of turmoil as local factions struggled to gain control of their provinces and to keep the masses in line. Out of desperation to weaken the radical appeals for federalism, republicanism, and hostility toward the Portuguese, and to protect against calls for Pedro I's restoration, the regency in Rio de Janeiro gave considerable power to the provinces in 1834. Brazil took on the appearance of a federation of local pátrias (autonomous centres of regional power) with loose allegiance to the Rio de Janeiro government, whose function was to defend them from external attack and to maintain order and balance among them. The government's ability to carry out that function was impaired, however, by the low budgets allowed the army and navy, and by the creation of a National Guard, whose officers were local notables determined to protect their private and regional interests. The rebellions, riots, and popular movements that marked the next years did not spring as much from economic misery as from attempts to share in the prosperity resulting from North Atlantic demand for Brazil's exports.
Many of the disturbances were so fleeting they were all but forgotten. For example, in Rio de Janeiro alone there were five uprisings in 1831 and 1832. Another eight of the more famous revolts in the 1834-49 period included the participation of lower-class people, Indians, free and runaway blacks, and slaves, which accounts for their often fierce suppression. Republican objectives were apparent in some of these revolts, such as the War of Tatters (1835-45), also known as the Farroupilha Revolution ("farroupilha" is a Portuguese word that means "one who wears tatters"), in Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. Others, such as the Cabanagem in Pará in 1835-40, the Sabinada in Salvador in 1837-38, the Balaiada Rebellion in Maranhão in 1838-41, and the ones in Minas Gerais and São Paulo in 1842, were propelled simultaneously by antiregency and promonarchial sentiments. Such unrest dispels the notion that the history of state formation in Brazil was peaceful. Instead, it shows the confrontation between the national government and the splintering motherlands (pátrias), which would continue in varying degrees for the next century.
Pedro II as the focus of unity
Pedro I's death from tuberculosis in 1834 had sapped the restorationist impulse and removed the glue that held uneasy political allies together. With the regency attempting to suppress simultaneous revolts in the South and North, it could not easily reassert its supremacy over the remaining provinces. Brazil could well have split apart in those years. It did not for three reasons. First, the military was reorganized as an instrument of national unity under the leadership of Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, who was ennobled as the Duke of Caxias (Duque de Caxias) and who was later proclaimed Patron of the Brazilian Army. Second, the specter of slave revolt and social disintegration had become all too real. And third, the "vision of Brazil as a union of autonomous pátrias", in Roderick J. Barman's phrase, was replaced by the vision of Brazil as a nation-state. Rather than risk their fortunes and lives, the elites, longing for a focus of loyalty, identity, and authority, rallied around the boy-Emperor to raise him to power in 1840. The Houses of the Brazilian General Assembly (the Imperial Parliament), meeting in joint session, in defiance of a decree from the Regency proroguing the annual legislative session, sent a Commission to ask the boy-Emperor whether or not he would agree to be declared of age immediately. The Emperor agreed. Then, the Regent, under pressure, revoked the decree that had prorogued the Legislature. Within hours, the General Assembly passed a resolution declaring the Emperor of age, at age of fourteen instead of the constitutionally specified age of eighteen. The Emperor then appeared before the General Assembly, took the constitutional oath, and a proclamation was issued declaring the end of the regency and the beginning of the personal rule of Pedro II. He was subsequently crowned on July 18, 1841. Thus, the second reign was born in the hope that it would be an instrument of national unity, peace, and prosperity.
Internal stability, 1840-89
Reunification and centralization
Through the beginning of Pedro II's reign, in the 1840s, the Brazilian nation-state coalesced as authorities suppressed revolts and rewrote Brazilian law. These laws, however, did not bode well for democracy because they shaped an electoral system based on government-controlled fraud. In 1842, on the advice of conservative courtiers, Pedro II used his constitutional moderating power to dismiss the newly elected liberal Chamber of Deputies and called new elections, which the conservatives won by stuffing the ballot boxes. In so doing, he set a pattern of favoring conservatives over liberals.
The "moderating power" granted to the emperor by the constitution of 1824 — to balance the traditional executive, legislative, and judicial branches — gave him the right to name senators, to dismiss the legislature, and to shift control of the government from one party to the other. In theory, he was to act as the political balance wheel. The parties at this time were more groupings of members of Parliament than ideologically based movements dependent on distinct electorates. Historian Richard Graham observed that "No particular political philosophy distinguished one group from another." The political system had an artificial aspect to it; it did not relate openly to the real power structure of the country—the senhores da terra ("landowners") who ran local affairs.
A good example of how the real power-holders manipulated the system to protect their narrow interests to the detriment of the national interest was the Land Law of 1850, which set the pattern for modern landholding. The Land Law ended the colonial practice of obtaining land through squatting or royal grants and limited acquisition to purchase, thereby restricting the number of people who could become owners. By creating obstacles to land ownership, the law's framers hoped to force free labor to work for existing landlords. However, proprietors sabotaged the law by not surveying their lands and not resolving their conflicting claims in order to keep titles cloudy and hence in their hands. One result of the uncertain titles was that slaves were used as collateral.
End of the slave trade
In 1850, British and domestic pressure finally forced the Brazilian government to outlaw the African slave trade. London, tiring of Brazilian subterfuge, authorized its navy to seize slave ships in Brazilian waters, even in ports. Rather than risk open war with Britain, paralyzation of commerce, widespread slave unrest, and destabilization of the empire, the government outlawed the African slave trade. It deported a number of Portuguese slavers and instructed the provincial presidents, police, judges, and military to crack down. Over the next five years, even clandestine landings stopped, and despite the tempting rise of slave prices in the coffee districts of Rio de Janeiro Province, the trans-Atlantic trade ended. Although the British claimed credit, for the first time a Brazilian government had the power to enforce a law along the length of the coast. Also, internal support for the trade had weakened. Most slave importers were Portuguese, who had been selling the ever more expensive Africans to landowners on credit at climbing interest rates, in some cases forcing the latter into insolvency and loss of property. Xenophobia and the debts of the landed classes combined to support the government action.
Ending the slave trade had a number of consequences. First, because labor needs increased in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo as the world demand for coffee rose, Northeastern planters sold their surplus slaves to Southern growers. In addition, Parliament passed laws encouraging European immigration, and the Land Law of 1850. Second, ending the slave trade freed capital that could then be used for investment in transport and industrial enterprises. Third, it ensured that Britain did not interfere in Brazil's military intervention to end the rule in Buenos Aires of Juan Manuel de Rosas (who was governor of Buenos Aires province, 1829-33, 1835-52).
War of the Triple Alliance
The empire had lost the East Bank of the Río de la Plata (in Portuguese: Rio da Prata) with the founding of Uruguay in 1828, but it continued to meddle in that republic's affairs. Brazil's most important businessman, Irineu Evangelista de Sousa, the Visconde de Mauá, had such heavy financial interests there that his company was effectively the Uruguayan government's bank. Other Brazilians owned about 400 large estates (estancias) that took up nearly a third of the country's territory. They objected to the taxes the Uruguayans imposed when they drove their cattle back and forth to Rio Grande do Sul, and they took sides in the constant fighting between Uruguay's Colorado and Blanco political factions, which later became the Colorado Party and the National Party (Blancos). Some of Rio Grande do Sul's gauchos did not accept Uruguayan independence in 1828 and continually sought intervention.
In the mid-1860s, the imperial government conspired with Buenos Aires authorities to replace the Blanco regime in Montevideo with a Colorado one. The Blancos appealed to Paraguayan dictator Francisco Solano López (president, 1862-70), who harbored his own fears of the two larger countries and who regarded a threat to Uruguay as a menace to Paraguay. A small landlocked country, Paraguay had the largest army in the region: 64,000 soldiers compared with Brazil's standing army of 18,000. In 1864, Brazil and Argentina agreed to act together should Solano López attempt to save the Blancos. In September 1864, wrongly convinced that he would not be so foolish, the Brazilians sent troops into Uruguay to put the Colorados in power. Each side miscalculated the intentions, capabilities, and will of the other. Paraguay reacted by seizing Brazilian vessels on the Rio Paraguai and by attacking the province of Mato Grosso. Solano López, mistakenly expecting help from anti-Buenos Aires caudillos, sent his forces into Corrientes to get at Rio Grande do Sul and Uruguay, and found himself at war with both Argentina and Brazil. In May 1865, those two countries and Colorado-led Uruguay signed an alliance that aimed to transfer contested Paraguayan territory to the larger countries, to open Paraguayan rivers to international trade, and to remove Solano López. By September 1865, the allies had driven the Paraguayans out of Rio Grande do Sul, and they took the war into Paraguay when that country spurned their peace overtures.
Fiercely defending their homeland, the Guaraní speaking Paraguayans defeated the allies at Curupaity in September 1866. The Argentine president, General Bartolomé Mitre (1861-68), took the bulk of his troops home to quell opposition to his war policy, leaving the Brazilians to soldier on. The famed General Lima e Silva, Marquis and later Duke of Caxias, took command of the allied forces and led them until the fall of Asunción in early 1869. With stubborn determination, the Brazilians pursued Solano López until they cornered and killed him. They then occupied Paraguay until 1878.
The war dragged on for several reasons. First, the Paraguayans were better prepared at the outset and conducted an effective offensive into the territories of their adversaries, immediately handing them defeats. Even later, when pushed back onto their own land, they had the advantages of knowing the ground, of having prepared defenses, and of fielding stubbornly loyal troops. Second, it took the Brazilians considerable time to marshal their forces and considerable effort and cost to keep them supplied. Third, the Argentines, hoping to improve their postwar situation in relation to Brazil, delayed operations partly to force the empire to weaken itself by expending its resources. Fourth, this was the era of "unconditional surrender". It was militarily fashionable to pursue Francisco Solano López to the bitter end.
Aftermath of the war
The war had important consequences for Brazil and the Río de la Plata region. It left Brazil and Argentina facing each other over a prostrate Paraguay and a dependent Uruguay, a situation that soon turned into a tense rivalry that repeatedly assumed warlike postures. Historians debate the number of Paraguayan casualties, some asserting that 50% of Paraguayans were killed, others arguing that it was much less, possibly 8 to 9% of the prewar population total. Nonetheless, the losses from battle, disease, and starvation were severe and disrupted the development of the republic. In Brazil, the war contributed to the growth of manufacturing, to the professionalization of the armed forces and their concentration in Rio Grande do Sul, to the building of roads and the settling of European immigrants in the southern provinces, and to the increased power of the central government. Most important for the future, the war brought the military firmly into the political arena. Military officers were keenly aware that the war had exposed the military's lack of equipment, training, and organization. Officers blamed these shortcomings on civilian officials. In the next decades, reformist officers seeking to modernize the army would criticize the Brazilian political structure and its peculiar culture as obstacles to modernization.
The republican movement
The end of the war coincided with the resurgence of republicanism as disenchanted liberals cast about for a new route to power. The 1867 collapse of the short-lived, French-sponsored Mexican monarchy of Maximilian left Brazil as the only Latin American monarchical regime. And because Argentina appeared to prosper in the 1870s and 1880s, it served as a powerful advertisement for republican government. The republican ideology spread in urban areas and in provinces, such as São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul, where the people did not believe they benefited from imperial economic policies. The republican manifesto of 1870 proclaimed that "We are in America and we want to be Americans." Monarchy was, the writers asserted, hostile to the interests of the American states and would be a continuous source of conflict with Brazil's neighbors.
The republicans embraced the abolition of slavery to remove the stigma of Brazil's being the only remaining slaveholding country (save for Spanish Cuba) in the hemisphere. It was not so much that they believed that slavery was wrong as that it gave the country an image distasteful to Europeans. Abolition, which would come in 1888, did not imply that liberals wanted deep social reform or desired a democratic society. Indeed, their arguments against slavery were weighted toward efficiency rather than morality. Once in power, the republicans looked to discipline the legally free work force with various systems of social control.
The Brazilian social system functioned through intertwined networks of patronage, familial relationships, and friendships. The state, capitalist economy, and institutions such as the church and the army developed within what historian Emília Viotti da Costa has called "the web of patronage." Contacts and favor rather than ability determined success in virtually all occupations. Brazilian society was one in which a person could not advance without friends and family; hence, the continued importance of kinship networks (parentelas) and military school classes (turmas). Such a social system did not lend itself to reform.
Crisis with the Church
In the 1870s and 1880s, there was a crisis in each of the three pillars of the imperial regime – the Church, the military, and the slaveholding system. Together, these crises represented the failure of the regime to adapt without alienating its base. In the 1870s, Rome pressured Brazil's Roman Catholic Church to conform to the conservative reforms of the First Vatican Council, which strengthened the power of the pontiff by declaring him infallible in matters of faith and morals. This effort by Rome to unify doctrine and practice worldwide conflicted with royal control of the Church in Brazil. The Crown had inherited the padroado, or right of ecclesiastical patronage, from its Portuguese predecessor. This right gave the Crown control over the Church, which imperial authorities treated as an arm of the state. Although some clerics had displayed republican sentiments earlier in the century, a church-state crisis exploded in the mid-1870s over efforts to Europeanize the Church.
Crisis in the army
The importance of the military crisis is clearer because it removed the armed prop of the regime. After the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-70), the monarchy was indifferent to the army, which the civilian elite did not perceive as a threat. The fiscal problems of the 1870s slowed promotions to a crawl, salaries were frozen, and officers complained about having to contribute to a widows' fund from their meager salaries. Moreover, the soldiers in the ranks were considered the dregs of society, discipline was based on the lash, and training seemed pointless. The gulf between the military and the civilian oligarchies broadened. The political parties were as indifferent as the government to demands for military reform, for obligatory military service, for better armament, and for higher pay and status. During the 1870s, the discontent was checked by the National Guard's reduced role, by an unsuccessful but welcomed attempt to improve the recruitment system, and, especially, by the cabinet service of war heroes, including the Duke of Caxias as prime minister (1875-78) and Marshal Manuel Luís Osório, the Marquis of Herval, as minister of war (1878). But the latter died in 1879 and Caxias the year after, leaving leadership to officers less committed to the throne. The junior officer ranks were filled with men from the middle classes who had entered the army to obtain an education rather than to follow a military career. They were more concerned than their predecessors with social changes that would open opportunities to the lower middle class.
The officer corps was split into three generations. The oldest group had helped suppress the regional revolts of the 1830s and 1840s, had fought in Argentina in 1852, and had survived the War of the Triple Alliance. The numerous mid-level officers were better schooled than their seniors and had been tested in combat in Paraguay. The junior officers had missed the war, but had the most education of the three groups and had experienced the empire only when its defects had become clearly apparent. They were the least attached to the old regime and the most frustrated by the lack of advancement in a peacetime army cluttered with veterans of the great war.
Brazilian political tradition permitted officers to hold political office and to serve as cabinet ministers, thereby blurring the civil-military roles. As parliamentary deputies and senators, officers could criticize the government, including their military superiors, with impunity. In the 1880s, officers participated in provincial politics, debated in the press, and spoke in public forums. In 1884, a civilian minister of war attempted to impose order by forbidding officers to write or speak publicly about governmental matters. The subsequent punishments of offending officers led Field Marshal Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca and General José Antônio Correia de Câmara (Visconde de Pelotas) to head protests that eventually forced the minister to resign in February 1887 and the cabinet to fall in March 1888.
Abolition of slavery
Even as the church and military crises were unfolding, the slavery issue shook the support of the landed elite. Members of the Liberal and Conservative Parties came from the same social groups: plantation owners (fazendeiros) made up half of both, and the rest were bureaucrats and professionals. The ideological differences between the parties were trivial, but factional and personal rivalries within them made it difficult for the parties to adjust to changing social and economic circumstances. As a result, the last decade of the empire was marked by considerable political instability. Between 1880 and 1889, there were ten cabinets (seven in the first five years) and three parliamentary elections, with no Parliament able to complete its term. The repeated use of the moderating power provoked alienation, even among traditional monarchists.
Attitudes toward slavery had shifted gradually. Pedro II favored abolition, and, during the War of the Triple Alliance, slaves serving in the military were emancipated. In 1871, the Rio Branco cabinet approved a law freeing newborns and requiring masters to care for them until age eight, at which time they would either be turned over to the government for compensation or the owner would have use of their labor until age twenty-one. "The Law of 1871 also liberated state owned slaves, codified the right of slaves to purchase their own freedom, established an Emancipattion Fund to facilitate manumission by individual initiative and declared the need for a register (matricula) of all Brazil's existing slaves." (Bethell p.80) In 1885, a law freed slaves over sixty years of age. "However, as a form of compensation to their owners the slaves were obliged to serve for a further three years, or until they reached the age of 65 and remain in empolyment in the same municipio for a further five years." (Bethell p.86) By the 1880s, the geography of slavery had also changed, and the economy was less dependent on it. Because of manumissions (many on condition of remaining on the plantations) and the massive flight of slaves, the overall numbers declined from 1,240,806 in 1884 to 723,419 in 1887, with most slaves having shifted from the sugar plantations in the Northeast to the south-central coffee groves. But even planters in São Paulo, where the slave percentage of the total population had fallen from 28.2% in 1854 to 8.7% in 1886, understood that to continue expansion they needed a different labor system. The provincial government therefore actively began subsidizing and recruiting immigrants. Between 1875 and 1887, about 156,000 arrived in São Paulo. Meanwhile, the demand for cheap sugarcane workers in the Northeast was satisfied by sertanejos (inhabitants of the sertão) fleeing the devastating droughts of the 1870s in the sertão.
The economic picture was also changing. Slavery immobilized capital invested in the purchase and maintenance of slaves. By turning to free labor, planter capital was freed for investment in railroads, streetcar lines, and shipping and manufacturing enterprises. To some extent, these investments offered a degree of protection from the caprices of agriculture.
Meanwhile, slaves left the plantations in great numbers, and an active underground supported runaways. Army officers petitioned the Regent Princess Isabel to relieve them of the duty of pursuing runaway slaves. Field Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca, commander in Rio Grande do Sul, declared in early 1887 that the military "had the obligation to be abolitionist". They were no longer willing to defend slavery, or be responsible for finding runaway slaves and returning them to their owners. The São Paulo assembly petitioned the Parliament for immediate abolition. The agitation reached such a pitch that to foreign travelers, Brazil appeared on the verge of social revolution. The system was coming apart, and even planters realized that abolition was the way to prevent chaos.
"The Brazilian slave system began to unwind in 1887-1888: as slaves began to revolt and flee (and as slave prices collapsed) slaveowners in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Pernanbuco, for example-began voluntarily to liberate their slaves, sometimes unconditionally but more often in return for labour contracts of one, two or three years. Many owners were influenced by the Church which for the first time openly favored abolition. But most were simply attempting to bring what was happening all around them under some sort of control and prevent a total disorganization of labour on the plantations." (Bethell p.87)
"It should also be mentioned that there was a Brazilian Popular movement in favor of abolition during the years of 1880-85, which was very similar to the anti-slavery movement in North America. Public rallies were held in theaters and concert halls as well as newspaper articles printed against slavery. Many people were also involved with the "overground railway" where whole plantations were simultaneously abandoned." (Drescher p.450)
The so-called Golden Law of May 13, 1888 abolished slavery. The country's economy revived rapidly after a few lost harvests, and only a small number of planters went bankrupt. Slavery ended, but the plantation survived and so did the basic attitudes of a class society. Many former slaves stayed on the plantations in the same quarters, receiving paltry wages. They were joined by waves of immigrants, who often found conditions so unbearable that they soon moved to the cities or returned to Europe. No freedmen's bureaus or schools were established to improve the lives of the former slaves; they were left at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale, where some of their descendants remain. "Some of the effects that occurred in response to aboliton was that power was shifted from the sugar zone of the northeast to the new coffee zone of São Paulo. Also the monarchy was weakened since they had strong ties with the elite landowners and they were no longer as powerful as before." (Graham p.136)
The republican coup
In the end, the empire fell because the elites did not need it to protect their interests. Indeed, imperial centralization ran counter to their desires for local autonomy.
After the abolition of slavery in 1888, the economic system of the north led to serious economic problems. Widespread famine soon resulted in the death of many former slaves in the northern states with slave-based economies. As a result of both the loss of slaves, their major resource, and the economic problems that followed abolition, the rich oligarchical elements of Brazilian society found their economic interests in considerable danger. Consequently, the elite responded to the liberalising tendencies of the imperial government by supporting the creation of an oligarchical republic, with local elites being able to control dominate their areas through a decentralized federal system.
Unlike the foundation of many republics, the foundation of the Brazilian republic can therefore be seen as a reactionary development.
In the early republic, the oligarchies quickly accumulated the power and skills to control the new governmental system. Taking advantage of cabinet crises in 1888 and 1889 and of rising frustration among military officers, republicans favoring change by revolution rather than by evolution drew military officers, led by Field Marshal Fonseca, into a conspiracy to replace the cabinet in November 1889. What started as an armed demonstration demanding replacement of a cabinet turned within hours into a coup d'état deposing Emperor Pedro II.
Demographics
In 1823, there were 4 million inhabitants (71% free and 29% slave).
In 1854, there were 7,700,000 (76% free and 24% slave).
In 1872 there were 9,930,478 inhabitants (84.8% free and 15.2% slave). According to the national census made in this year, among the free inhabitants (8,419,672 people), 38% were white, 39% mulattoes (white and black mix), 11% black and 5% caboclos (white and Indian mix). Could read and write: 23.4% of the free men and 13.4% of the free women.
In 1887 there were 14,500,000 inhabitants (95% free and 5% slaves). In 1889, 20% of the total population could read and write.
State structure
Form of Government
Upon gaining independence from Portugal in 1822, the Brazilian nation as a whole was almost entirely in favor of a monarchical form of government. There were a variety of reasons for this political choice. There was fear among various social groups of the possibility that Brazil would fall into the same political, social, and economic chaos experienced by most of the former Spanish American colonies: territorial dismemberment, coups, dictatorships and the rise of caudillos. The perceived necessity was for a political structure that would permit the Brazilian people not merely to enjoy the advantages of liberty, but also that would guarantee the country's stability, in conformance with the liberalism of the time. Only a neutral entity, completely independent of parties, groups or opposing ideologies, could achieve this end. And there was "always a powerful ideological element remaining from independence as the result of a great national union over particular interests." The Brazilian monarchy was a "a form of government that assured a Brazil that would include the whole of the old Portuguese dominion, in a climate of order, peace, and freedom."
There was also another reason for adoption of the monarchy, or more precisely, its maintenance. The Europeans, as much as the Africans and the native americans, came from monarchical societies. To remain under this form of government was a way of maintaining the traditions and identity of the Brazilian people, a people descended from those three distinct ethnic groups. The choice of a member of the House of Braganza came not just from the historical moment, but also from the fact that Prince Pedro descended from the pure male line of the Portuguese kings. The House of Braganza originated with an illegitimate son of John I of the House of Aviz who, in turn, was the son of Peter I of the House of Burgundy, founded 300 years earlier in 1143 by Afonso Henriques, first king of Portugal. Thus, the strong popular appeal of the monarchy, and a tradition of more than three hundred years (or seven hundred if we count Portuguese history), enabled Prince Pedro to take on the role of a symbol of national unity. The monarchical regime maintained on Brazilian soil "was a force of continuity and tradition".
A third element in the choice of monarchy was the necessity to comply with the powers of the era, all located in Europe. The possibility, quite real at the time, of European countries seeking to dominate the young American nation, strengthened the desire to prevent the adoption of the republican form at all costs and to avoid any territorial dismemberment into small republics, weak and in constant rivalry with one another. Given that other Latin American countries and also Portugal were becoming easy prey to European (mainly British) greed, maintaining the monarchy with a king of European origin acted as a deterrent and allowed Brazil to ensure the predominance its interests. And in fact, "after the phase of the regency, turbulent but transitory by its very nature, the imperial order dominated from above, assuring internal peace and external prestige."
For the reasons cited above, Brazil chose a representative constitutional monarchical system. The imperial regime was based on the idea that sovereignty resided in the nation, not the state, symbolically represented by the emperor. While the Nation wished to experience freedom and prosperty, the State, in turn, wanted "permanence, duration and existence." In this form, the Constitution expressed in its text that both the Emperor and the General Assembly were representatives of the Brazilian nation. The monarch represented the constant, general interests of the nation as a whole, while the Assembly represented particular, ephemeral, momentary interests. However, the Emperor was not sovereign of the country; the sovereign was the Brazilian Nation, who delegated this role to the Emperor, as they did to the General Assembly.
The Emperor´s legitimacy
The role of the emperor of Brazil was to represent the nation. He represented that which the nation had "of oneness, of permanence, of stability. He represented the legal order, thy unity of all Brazilians, as well as the variations of region, class, party, race, represented the nation in its totality." The monarch was in reality a type of "minister of a republic", in the philosophical sense of that last word, from res publica, and not a sovereign by divine right. His function as a representative of the nation, of its legitimacy, derived not from being elected, but acclaimed, as had traditionally happened for centuries after the death of the previous monarch in homage to his successor. Acclamation was a popular designation that legitimated the role of the monarchy as representative of the Brazilian people. This in fact occurred at three distinct historic moments during the monarchical era: in 1822, when Pedro I was acclaimed, in 1831 and finally in 1840, when it was the turn of Pedro II be acclaimed in all the provinces. Acclamation was, in a certain way, a type of symbolic vote, equivalent to an informal plebiscite. It was popular acceptance that granted the legitimacy to Brazilian monarchs as representatives of the Nation.
Parliamentary system
A major difference between parliamentarism and presidentialism is that in the first, the Chief of the State and of the Government are distinct individuals, while in the second, both roles reside in a single individual. Under the Brazilian monarchy, nonetheless, the emperor was head of both the State and the Government. This basic characteristic of presidential republicanism was transplanted by the Brazilian Constitutional Order. The Constitution of 1824 was rather less parliamentary than the draft prepared by the Constituent Assembly. In fact, it was for all purposes a peculiar and unique regime: a presidential monarchy. That did not mean, by any means, that the Brazilian monarch had prerogatives resembling those of a tyrant or dictator. The individual guarantees that guarantee human liberty and dignity were inserted into the articles of the Charter and were respected. The Emperor would not act in areas reserved to the legislative branch and the judiciary, such as to create laws or to judge and sentence. Still, the creation of the Moderating Power and natural evolution of Brazilian representative system enabled a transition from presidential to the parliamentary model, which "would give the Empire a position of illustrious companion next to the British lion" [the United Kingdom]. It was unnecessary to modify the letter of the law in order to transmute one system of government into another: the Constitution itself in its elasticity (in terms of legal interpretation of the Charter) enabled this.
The first step in the parliamentary institution occurred in 1824, with the award of the first Brazilian constitutional charter, allowing the General Assembly (Parliament) to take a leading role in policy guidance of the nation. The second step was in 1826 when a minority deputy Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos sucessfully demanded that the ministers of state had to present the government's financial accounts before the Chamber of Deputies. The third step, the most important, was taken in 1847 when Francisco de Paula Souza demanded the creation of the office of the President of the Council of Ministers (equivalent to the Prime Minister, and holding executive power). These steps resulted in the consolidation of Brazilian parliamentarism, in the same manner as the consolidation of British parliamentarism, as it would facilitate the distinction between Executive Power and Moderating Power.
The Brazilian Parliament became increasingly important, as all the great political decisions took place there, providing occasion for memorable debates. In 1881, it was already a custom of the Ministers of State to present government financial accounts to the Parliament, make annual reports on their activities and attend to answer criticism by the Deputies and Senators. These acts allowed great freedom for parliamentary interplay. This did not pass without observation by foreigners. Brazil was criticized for its broad freedom of speech and its "exaggerated parliamentarism" as it was called by the French ambassador Amelot, the Count of Chaillou. In the view of foreigners, Brazilian parliamentarism was not behind its European equivalents. The Empire was "from its outset a crowned democracy, in which the executive prevailed at first, and the legislature ended up predominating".
In the Imperial Parliament there were "solid and competitive parties, an active parliament, a free press, open debate", traditions that the Old Republic did not maintain. Both the emperor and the ministers of state always sought to act with attention to Parliament, making a sincere effort to improve the country's political system by adopting characteristics inherent in Parliamentarianism. For example: the definition of the cabinet's governmental program was drafted by the President of the Council of Ministers, and was, in turn, presented by the monarch every year at the opening of the Chamber of Deputies. Another example was the emergence of the possibility that Parliament, when deemed necessary, would submit a motion of no confidence against the cabinet of ministers. This provided a mode of defense (used at exceptional moments) of the parliamentary minority against the cabinet formed by the majority, were they to act inappropriately.
Federalism
The imperial Constitution of 1824 made Brazil a unitary country, aiming to facilitate control by the central government over the provinces and thereby impede eventual territorial desmemberment. Nonetheless, the reality was more of a semi-unitarianism, because municipal assemblies elected by the population had their own prerogatives. This framework would be changed when the Act in 1834 created additional Provincial Assemblies to legislate on issues related to local administration. The Act also created an "economic and municipal government" that made possibility that cities could "neutralize in a certain way the absolute power exercised over the provinces by their presidents". A supposed reversal occurred in this area due to the Additional Law of Interpretation of the Act of 1840, which would have restricted autonomy gained by Act of 1832. Historian Maria de Fatima Silva Gouvêa wrote of the view widely held among historians, regarding the non-existence of federalism in the Empire:
Apart from some few studies published in recent years—in particular the work of Miriam Dohnikoff and Maria Fernanda Martins—very little has been produced on the subject, there remains a strong historiographical perception of the period as being marked by the existence of a monarchic State, centralized, instituted from the will and the dictates of a plantation and slaveocratic elite, over the will of the imperial Brazilian society as a whole.”
Nonetheless, even after the revision of 1840, the Brazilian State retained certain characteristics of federalism, despite the fact that these were not foreseen in its founding. Because federalism was the principal change proposed by the republicans in the 19th century, scholars of the subject give the impression that federalism did not exist under the monarchy. William Riker, one of the principal theoreticians with respect to federalism, considered that the Brazilian monarchy adopted a federalist model after the Additional Act of 1834. His view is that federalism would consist of a "division of competencies between the general government and the regional governments." The principal characteristic of federation is the mutual existence of two autonomous levels of government, in this case central and regional. This was reality during the monarchy, which would be considered a de facto federation were it not for the fact of the presidents of the provinces (same as governors of states) being appointed by the Emperor and the Senator having a lifelong tenure. The prussian officer Max von Versen who visited Brazil in 1867 wrote that the Emperor "shares the sovereignty with a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies [House of Representatives] that are assemblies elected by universal suffrage. In fact the Crown does have only the ability to execute decisions of the Legislative. It is so great the administrative autonomy of the provinces, so predominant is the function of the Parliament as it is small the sphere of political attributions of the Emperor". Mirian Dohnikoff concludes that:
The constitutional division of competencies between provincial governments and the central government, guaranteeing the autonomy of the former, which could not be unilaterally revoked by the central government; the capacity of the provincial governments to make decisions autonomously about matters relative to taxation, the police force, public works, jobs, etc.; the constant negociation between provinces and the center in parliament to reduce tensions and confrontations between divergent interpretations about the sphere of the competence of each; the attribution of the central government to respond to national unity, provided the tools necessary for both; and its coexistence with autonomous provincial governments, which accounted for strategic regional issues, were federalist factors that prevailed in nineteenth century Brazil. The defeat in the negotiations of reforms in 1832, which resulted in the maintenance of the lifelong character of membership in the Senate, and the fact of the president of the province being appointed by the central government prevented the full adoption of a federal model. On the other hand, as I have tried to demonstrate, the [centrally appointed] president had limited powers, of a type that did not constitute an obstacle to the exercise of provincial autonomy. The president did not have the power to present legislative projects, and the right to veto laws approved by the Assembly was only one of suspension. It could be exercised for a limited time, only ten days, and returned the to the same Assembly that approved the law, where it could be overruled by two-thirds of the legislators.
Thus, it remained to the monarchic government to abolish the lifelong character of membership in the Senate and to allow the choice of presidents of the provinces by popular vote, to achieve complete federalism. Such changes would occur in 1889, when the Viscount of Ouro Preto, President of the last Council of Ministers of the monarchy, presented his government proposals to the General Assembly. But, owing to the coup that installed the republic, these plans never came to fruition.
Political structure
Moderating power
Following the standard dictated by liberalism of the nineteenth century, the Constitution of 1824 granted the monarchy protection under a representative system and protected by the most important, innovative and original item in the constitutional text: the Moderating Power . This fourth power was personal to the Emperor, acting as a "mechanism to absorb friction between the legislative and executive powers" and his role as the one who would maintain the balance between both powers would allow Pedro II throughout his reign the "worthy position that he exercised with so much pleasure and peace."
Tobias Barreto has analyzed the Moderating Power and the parliamentary government, explained as the reason for its adoption both the fact that "institutions that are not the daughters of custom, but the product of theories only, do not hold themselves for much longer against reality and they will soon ruin themselves when faced by facts." It would not matter if there were laws that would follow the customs and traditions of other nations (other than the Brazilians) that would be admirable in theory, but in practice, would become counterproductive to the point of creating cracks that over time would collapse the edifice of the country's constitutional order. Thus, thanks to the Moderating Power, Brazil was able to "open a valve through which parliamentary anarchy could escape", in other words, it would minimize eventual damage caused by disputes between rival political factions.
According to João Camillo Torres the idea behind the Moderating Power was "that a monarch, by virtue of dynastic continuity, took no part in factions, classes, had no regional links, did not owe his power to economic groups, did not have to fulfill electoral promises, did not need to think of his own future — the future of his family was guaranteed by the preservation of peace and national greatness — he was not subject to the temptation of taking advantage of a brief passage through the government to grant benefits and advantages for himself only at the cost of the nation´s welfare and leaving the onus to his successors" as he knows that his "successor will be his own son, knowing that history, many times, charges grandchildren with the crimes of their grandparents".
Article 99 of the Constitution of 1824 declared that the “person of the Emperor is inviolable and sacred; he is not subject to any responsibility”. This disposition was not characteristic only of the nineteenth century Brazilian constitutional regime. On the contrary, the lack of responsibility of the monarch continues to exist under present-day parliamentary monarchies. The powers reserved to the Moderating Power were to be exercised only after consulting the Council of State. Most of these powers (which were enumerated in Article 101) were identical to those reserved for monarchs today, such as: to convoke the General Assembly (parliament) in the intervals between sessions; to sanction the decrees and resolutions of the General Assembly, for them to take on the force of law;
extend or postpone the General Assembly and dissolve the Chamber of Deputies , convoking another immediately to replace the former; freely appointing and firing ministers of state; pardoning and modifying judicial sentences and granting amnesty.
The dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies should not be confused with the closure of a National Congress (or Parliament). The first refers to a legal measure that exist under Parliamentarism, while the second is a dictatorial act. There was a great care on the part of Brazilian monarchs at the time to exercise their prerogative to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies. For example, in the case of Peter I, he did not dissolve or postponed the Parliament during his reign. While Peter II, not once in his 58 years as Emperor that such dissolution occurred by his own initiative; instead, it was always solicited by the President of the Council of Ministers. There were various dissolutions during the period of his reign, eleven in all, and of these, ten occurred only after the Council of State was consulted on the matter, something that was not obligatory. The power to veto laws was not absolute, merely partial: if two consecutive legislatures presented the same legislation without modifications, the Emperor's signature would not be needed to pass it.
Among the other prerogatives of the emperor were: to suspend magistrates for complaints against their persons, but only after carrying through hearings with them, taking all the important information available, and consulting the Council of State (those magistrates effectively lost their jobs only after due process of law that resulted in a condenatory sentence after all possible appeals); approve or suspend resolutions (laws) of provincial councils (similar to a provincial Chamber of Deputies) and name Senators according to a list of the three candidates who had gained the majority of popular vote. The power to approve or suspend resolutions of provincial councils was extraordinary, it was the competence of the General Assembly and could only occur if that body, for some reason, was unable to meet (This prerogative was annulled by the Amendment of 1834).
As to the power of nominating Senators, that was not a characteristic peculiar to the Brazilian juridical order, but to something common in all countries of that era. In the United States, a presidential republic, Senators were chosen by the state legislatures (until this was modified by the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913); in Great Britain, the House of Lords was composed of life members and hereditary members and reserved solely to the nobility; similarly, in France, Senators, also with life terms, were named rather than elected. None of these three countries, considered at that time to be great democracies alongside Brazil, there was any popular participation in the selection of Senators. In contrast, in Brazil Senators were supposed to be named from a list of three candidates who had received the most votes from the Brazilian people (and normally, with only rare exceptions, the choice was precisely the one with the most votes).
Paulo Bonavides wrote that the Moderating Power "can only be appreciated for its role on the consolidation of national unity and the stability of the political system of the Empire" on “a continent politically flagellated by civil hatreds and pulverized into weak and rival republics.” For Galvão Sousa, the Moderating Power under Pedro II, “created the space for the famous 'dictatorship of honesty.' It soon became the personal power of the monarch, always exercised with a high public spirit”. The term "dictatorship" used by the author does not have a pejorative connotation and merely exemplifies the force of morality and justice that dom Pedro II imposed in his role as constitutional monarch.
Elections
According to the Constitution of 1824, one of the most liberal of its time, voting was obligatory and elections occurred in two steps: in first phase, voters chose Electors. The Electors then chose senators (members of the upper house), deputies (members of the lower house), provincial deputies (members of the province´s assembly) and councilmen (members of the town´s assembly). All the men 25 years of age or older could vote in the first phase with an income of at least Rs 100$000 per year or more, with some exceptions; married men 21 years of age or older could vote, as well. To be an Elector, it was necessary to have an income of at least Rs 200$000 per year. The income requirement was much higher in the United Kingdom even after the 1832 reform. The only countries at the time that did not require a certain income to vote were France and Switzerland, where universal suffrage was introduced only in 1848. It is probable that no European country at the time had such liberal legislation as Brazil.
The income requirement was low enough that, effectively, any employed male citizen could vote. For comparison, in 1876 the civil employee with the lowest wage at the time, a janitor working in the public sector, earned Rs 600$000 annually. Ex-slaves couldn´t vote, but their children and grandchildren could, as could the illiterate (which few countries allowed). Most voters in Brazil had a low income. In 1876, for example, in the town of Formiga, in the province of Minas Gerais, the poor were 70% of the electorate and in Irajá, in the province of Rio de Janeiro, they were 87%. In 1872, 13% of the free Brazilian population voted. For comparation, in 1870 in the UK, electoral participation was 7% of the total population; in Italy, it was 2%; in Portugal, 9%; and in the Netherlands 2.5%. In 1832, the year of the British electoral reform, 3% of the British voted. Further reforms in 1867 and 1884 managed to expand electoral participation in the UK to 15%.
Although electoral fraud was common, it did not pass unobserved by Pedro II, or the politicians and experts of that time, who considered it a great problem to be resolved. Some measures, like the electoral reforms of 1855, 1875 and 1881, had been taken with intention to eliminate, or at least to diminish, fraud.
The Law of 19 September 1855 created the district vote, the electoral system of elections by circles and incompatibilities (also known as non-eligibility). The first one had as objective to make possible the representation of all the local factions, while the latter two had the purpose of reducing the influence of the government (independent of what party was in power) in the result of the elections. Beyond these new features, it was forbidden that public officials campaign in their own districts, as a measure to prevent them from using public resources for their own political benefit. As a consequence, presidents of provinces, as well as provincial secretaries, military, judges and chiefs of police were prohibited from running in the district where they served, although they could still run in a different district. The positive results of the reform were already apparent in the immediate following elections, in 1856: prior to that time, such officials constituted the majority of new members of Parliament. The reduction in their numbers allowed the “real country" to enter “directly in the Parliament", as was desired by the President of the Council of Ministers, Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, the marquis of Paraná.
The next reform occurred in 1875, when a mechanism was introduced that would make possible the representation of minorities (eliminating once and for all the ignominious unanimous assemblies): the system of the third, where the voters chose only 2/3 of the list of voters of the province, and in turn, the voters voted in 2/3 of the number of provincial deputies (provincial members of the house of representatives), thus allowing that the remaining 1/3 was filled by the votes of the opposition.
The last and the most important reform, known as "Saraiva Law" (in homage to the then Prime Minister, José Antônio Saraiva) brought significant changes, because it eliminated the election in two turns, introducing the direct and facultative vote and allowed the votes of ex-slaves, as well as of non-Catholics. Also, it extended the electoral incompatibilities (non-eligibility) of 1855, forbidding campaigning by entrepreneurs of public works and vicars and bishops in their own parishes, and established that elect public officials elected in other districts than their own could not exercise their public positions, receive wages or be promoted while their mandates lasted. The effects of the reform were felt immediately, because while in 1850 something like 48% of the members of the house of representatives were public officers, in the last legislature this percentage fell to only 8%. If, on one hand, the reform diminished corruption and electoral fraud, allowing the Brazilian parliamentary system to work better, it also had negative effects, as the illiterate were no longer allowed to vote. The people´s participation in elections dropped from 13% of the total population to only 0.8% in 1886. However, in the first legislature after the reform, the conservative opposition had 39% of the seats. In the second, it had 44% while the republicans had 2%. In the third legislature, the liberals were opposition in that moment and had 18% of all seats.
In 1889 about 20% of the Brazilian population could read and write, so depriving the illiterate of the franchise does not explain the reason for the sudden fall of the electorate. Possibly, it occurred because voting was no longer obligatory, which, together with the lack of interest of the Brazilian people in exerting their rights of citizenship, may have resulted in the reduction in the number of voters (which would continue until the middle of the 1940s).
To many Brazilians at that time, the greatest issue about their elections was their belief that the illiterate didn´t have capacity to vote, on the grounds that the illiterate were unaware of the notion of the meaning of a representative government, of the choice of somebody as its representative and were easily corruptible, usually selling their votes. To Pedro II, the best way to resolve the problem about the electoral fraud was not restricting the right to vote but, instead, improving education in the country. Even so, Brazil was capable of keeping uninterrupted elections from 1822 to 1889, strengthening the electoral process, as well the representative system, a record matched in the Americas only by the United States and Canada.
Economy
Currency
The unit of currency under the empire (and until 1942) was the real ("royal"), plural réis, a name derived from the Portuguese real.
One conto de réis was represented by the symbol Rs written before the value and by a dollar sign separating the units group (lower than 1,000 réis). Thus, 350 réis was written as "Rs 350"; 1,712 réis as "Rs 1$712"; and 1,020,800 réis was written as "Rs 1:020$800". This means that the colon functioned as the millions comma and the $ sign as the thousands comma; the colon is the actual group separator, and the $ sign is used only for separating the smaller group of units.
Overview
When Brazil became independent in 1822, its economy centered on export of raw materials. The domestic market was small, due to lack of credit and the almost complete self-sustainability of the cities, villages and farms that dedicated themselves to food production and cattle herding. During the first half of the 19th century, the imperial State invested heavily in the improvement of roads while retaining an excellent memorable system of ports. The former facilitated better commercial exchange and communication between the country's distant regions; the latter did the same for foreign trade. The economy of Brazil was extremely diversified in the after-Independence period, but a great effort was required of the monarchical government to carry through the change from a purely colonial economic system based on slavery to a modern capitalist system. Until its end, the monarchy continued the notable economic growth that began with the arrival of Prince Regent João in 1808. This was possible, in part, thanks to the liberalism adopted by the monarchic regime, which favored the private initiative.
For a country devoid of capital, economic improvement would require as much investment as possible in production for export. However, such a course was complicated by the complete lack of Brazilian manufactured products. This lack resulted in a considerable increase in importation, creating a continuous deficit. Most prominent among the imports were woven goods, wines, soaps, comestibles, and perfumes, amongst others. Until the 1850s, such items as coal, machinery, cement, iron, iron goods and iron tools represented 11% of the Brazilian imports from Great Britain. But the process of constant industrialization of Brazil would increase this percentage to 28% in 1889. As the decades passed, new technologies appeared, and with the increase of the internal productivity, exports increased considerably, making it possible to reach the desired equilibrium in the balance of trade. During the 1820s, sugar constituted about 30% of total exports, while cotton constituted 21%, coffee 18% and leather and skins 14%. Twenty years later, coffee would reach 42%, sugar 27%, leather and skins 9%, and cotton 8% of the total exports. However, this did not mean a reduction in the production of these any of these items—in fact, the opposite occurred—but “it reflected a difference in the relative growth of these sectors.” In this period of only twenty years, according to the historian Boris Fausto, “Brazilian exports had doubled in volume and had tripled in nominal value”, while its value in pounds sterling increased by over 40%.
In the 1820s, Brazil exported 11,000 tons of cacao, while in 1880 this had increased to 73,500 tons. Between 1821 and 1825, it exported 41,174 tons of sugar; sugar reached the incredible level of 238,074 tons between 1881 and 1885. Up to 1850 rubber production was insignificant, but between 1881 and 1890, it reached the third place among Brazilian exports. It was about 81 tons between 1827 and 1830, and reached 1,632 tons in 1852. By 1900 the country had exported 24,301,452 tons of rubber. Brazil also exported around 3,377,000 tons of coffee between 1821 and 1860, while between 1861 and 1889 this reached 6,804,000 tons. Technological innovation also contributed to the growth of exports. The main reason for this was the adoption of steam navigation and railroads, which allowed transportation of cargoes to become much less onerous and much faster. The first railroad with only 15 kilometers was opened in April, 30, 1854 when many european coutries did not have one. In 1868 there were 718 kilometers. By the end of the Empire in 1889 it grew to 9,200 kilometers while another 9,000 kilometers were under construction.
The absolute value of the exports of the Empire in 1850 was the highest in Latin America (triple that of Argentina, which was in fourth place); Brazil would keep this position in this respect and in general economic terms until the end of the monarchy. Brazil's international trade, that is, the sum of both its imports and exports, amounted to a total value of Rs 79.000:000$000 between 1834 and 1839 and increased every year until it reached Rs 472.000:000$000 in 1886 (an annual growth of 3.88% since 1839). In 1859 the balance of payments between imports and exports reaches equilibrium; exports gradually increase relative to imports, and the Empire's balance of trade becomes consistently positive from 1865 on. After 1874, the balance of payments becomes clearly favorable. Most Brazilian exports were agricultural goods. For comparison, between 1850 and 1900 agricultural goods constituted between 73% and 83% of the United States' total exports. This economic growth can be seen in the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which rose from Rs 50.000:000$000 in 1840 to Rs 500.000:000$000 in 1889 (an annual growth of 4.81% for this period). Brazilian economic growth, especially after 1850, compared "very well" with that of with the United States and the European countries, according to the historian Boris Fausto. Brazil in the last year of the monarchy was a “prosperous and [internationally] respected” country, according to historian Oliveira Lima. The historian Heitor Lyra wrote that:
The Empire, from the point of view of progress and material development of the country, was not a period of the backwardness and stagnation with which it is still today charged by many who do not want to work to better learn and know about this period of our History. And the truth is that Brazil was, in fact, and righteously, in this and other aspects, the first Nation of Latin America. This hegemony it would keep until the last day of the Monarchy.
The Brazilian per capita income in 1890 was of $770 (in 1990 US dollars). To give an idea of the economic potential of the country during the Empire, if “it had been able to keep the level of productivity achieved in 1780 and managed to increase exports at a pace equal to the one verified in the second half of 19th century, its per capita income in 1950 would be comparable to the the average per capita income the Western European countries, and the country would not have fallen so much behind the others”. That is, at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century, the country would not only be richer, and the Brazilian people would have had a far higher standard of living than actually prevailed at that time. According to João de Scantimburgo, what "hindered the political, social and economical progress of Brazil was the First Republic, and its consequences stretched to the future". Luís Nassif wrote that the first republican Government disastrous financial policy caused an economic stagnation that lasted from 1890 up to 1930.
Agriculture
Agriculture held an extremely important role in Brazil under the Empire: 80% of the labor force was dedicated to the agricultural sector, 13% to services and 7% to the industrial sector. The interior of the country, agriculture was carried through by the producers themselves (that is, without the use of slaves), supplying the local market. In the north and northeast regions, mainly in the provinces of Maranhão, Pernambuco, Alagoas and Paraíba cotton was cultivated, and small-to-medium sized farms produced food for subsistence and for local markets. The great distances that raised the cost of the transport, coupled with the taxes for interprovincial transit of goods, considerably restricted the capacity of distribution by the producers of the sectors related to the domestic market.
In the southeastern region, the coffee production that at the beginning of independent Brazil amounted to only 3% of exports, started to become more and more important for the Brazilian economy with each decade that passed, mainly because of extraordinary increase of consumers in the international market. The coffee farms were practically self-sustaining: they did not produce only coffee, but also food and clothes for the slaves, preventing the emergence of economic sectors to serve those markets. However, the suppression of the importation of slaves in 1850 (and the consequent rise in the price of slaves) compelled the producers to focus in the maintenance of manpower, to the detriment of self-sustainability. They sought means to limit the rising costs of production.
To remain competitive in the international market, agricultural producers modernized the production with governmental aid, adopting technical and technological innovations. In the north and northeast of the country, great centers called engenhos centrais ("central engines") were established for the processing of sugar cane, which revolutionized the traditional economy. These plants came to occupy the place of the old factories of sugar cane that dated from the colonial period, effectively industrializing the sector.
At the coffee plantation regions, the producers had carried through the transition of the enslaved man power for the paid one, with the absorption of foreign immigrants who arrived at the thousands each year and of former slaves. The benefits were many, but the main one was the reduction of the production cost, as the sustenance of slaves revealed that were more onerous than the payment of wages of free workers. The province of São Paulo was the one that better reached success at this field, carrying through the transistion of the old slavery economic system to the modern capitalist economic system. The province of Rio de Janeiro, however, revealed itself incapable of assimilating the new trends of the market, as it preferred to keep the use of enslaved man power until the end, which would eventually cause its economic collapse at the end of the Empire. The imperial government was not limited to facilitate the credit for the purchase of modern equipment or the arrival of immigrants, but also diminished taxes to collaborate with the effort of modernization of the country´s agricultural production. One of these measures occurred in 1874 when the Rio Branco cabinet fixed in 40% the custom-house tax for all the imported goods (of which would come to stimulate the national industry) at the same time as it created taxes for related importations of plants, mechanical seeds, roots, bulbs and devices with the intention of developing the agriculture.
Industry
Brazilian industry has its earliest origin in artisan workshops dating from the beginning of the 19th century. Most of the country's industrial establishments appeared in the Brazilian southeast (mainly in the provinces of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and, later, São Paulo), and, according to the Junta of Commerce, Agriculture, Factories and Navigation, 77 establishments registered between 1808 and 1840 were classified as “factories” or “manufacturers”. However, most, about 56 establishments, would artisan workshops by today's standards, directed toward the production of soap and candles of tallow, snuff, wiring and weaving, foods, melting of iron and metals, wool and silk, amongst others. They used both slaves and free laborers.
There were twenty establishments that could be considered in fact manufacturers, and of this total, thirteen were created between the years 1831 and 1840. All were, however, of small size and more resembled large artisan workshops than proper factories. Still, the manufactured goods were quite diverse: hats, combs of turtle, farriery and sawmills, wiring and weaving, soap and candles, glasses, carpets, oil, etc. Probably because of the instability of the regency period, only nine of these establishments were still functioning in 1841, but these nine were of great size and could be considered to “presage a new era for manufactures”. The advent of real manufacturing before the 1840s was extremely limited, due to the self-sufficiency of the regions of the country (mainly farms producing coffee and sugar cane, which produced their own food, clothes, equipment, etc…), the lack of capital, and high costs of production that made it impossible for national manufactures to compete with foreign products. Costs were high because most of the raw materials were imported, even though some of the plants already used machines.
The promulgation of the Alves Branco tariff would modify this picture. This tariff succeeded in increasing State revenues and stimulating growth of national industry. The sudden proliferation of capital was directed to investments in the areas of urban services, transports, commerce, banks, industries, etc… Most of the capital invested in industries was directed toward textiles. With unprecedented industrial growth, multiple manufacturing establishments appeared, dedicated to such diverse products as melting of iron and metal, machinery, soap and candles, glasses, beer, vinegar, gallons of gold and silver, shoes, hats and cotton fabric.
One could cite the birth of a metallurgical industry in Ponta da Areia, in the city of Niterói, that also constructed steamships. It is likely that the textile industry benefited most by the virtue of being the oldest in the country. It first appeared in 1830, with the founding of the Santo Antonio do Queimado plant in the city of Salvador, capital of the province of Bahia. The textile sector was quite dynamic in the monarchic period and received large investments until 1890, when it entered into decline. Various modernizations occurred, principally between 1840 and 1860, when factories with a high level of technological capability were created, able to compete with other major international centers. Other improvements came with the establishment of factories and forges geared for the production of parts for textile manufacture. The concentration of industry that emerged in the province of Bahia considerably expanded its economic scope, reaching the south of Ceará, Piauí and even Minas Gerais.
The extinction of the traffic in Negro slaves in 1850, contrary to what many authors allege, did not "liberate" credit for industrial development. That claim has no documentary basis whatever. On the contrary, capital employed in the trade was had already been directed to sectors such as enterprises of urban services, transport, banking and trade. But it is possible that there was an indirect contribution to the growth of the industrial sector through banking loans. In 1850, there were 50 factories with a capital of at least Rs 7.000:000$000.
The imperial government created diverse incentives for the industrialization of the country. The earliest of these date from the reign of Pedro I, through awards of government grants. The first establishment to receive such a grant was the “Fábrica das Chitas” ("Chitas Factory"), devoted to paper and printing, by a decree of 26 June 1826. The practice was resumed in the 1840s, when new industrial establishments received subsidies. in 1857, seven factories benefited from this practice of incentives, among them, the Ponta de Areia, owned by Irineu Evangelista de Sousa (future Viscount of Mauá). One of the criteria for the granting of these subsidieswas the exclusive employment of free workers. The goal, then, was not only the transition from the old colonial economic system to that of the modern capitalist, but also from slave labor to free. Other incentives arose, such as the decree of 8 August 1846 that exempted manufactured products from certain transport taxes (internally as well as externally), shielded from military recruitament a determinate number of employees of industrial establishments and elimiated tariffs on parts and machinery imported for textile factories. The following year in June, a new decree stated that all industrial establishments on national soil would be free of taxes on imported raw materials. Thus, production costs of domestic industry dropped considerably, allowing it to compete with foreign products. The Alves Branco tariff underwent modification in 1857, reducing to 15% the tax on imported products. Meanwhile, under the Rio Branco cabinet, the tariff on foreign products was newly raised to 40%, and new raw materials were exempted from import taxes.
At the end of the 1860s, came a new industrial surge caused by two armed conflicts: the American Civil War and the War of the Triple Alliance. Because of the first, U.S. production of cotton was interrupted by the blockade of the Union forces against the Confederacy. The second resulted in the emission of currency and an increase in import tariffs to cover the costs of war. This resulted in a great stimulus not only for the textile industry, but also for other sector, such as chemicals, cigars, glass, paper, leather, and optical and nautical instruments. During the 1870s, thanks to the decline of the coffee region of the Paraíba Valley and some areas of sugar production, many owners of plantations invested not only in the cotton textile industry, but also in other manufacturing sectors. Deployment of a railway network throughout the national territory also stimulated the emergence of new industrial activities, mainly in São Paulo. Industry also experienced a major impetus in this period. From the 1870s onward, the great expansion of industrialization became a constant in Brazil.
In 1880 the Industrial Association was established, with its first board elected the following year. The Association supported new industrial incentives and propagandized against the defenders of an essentially agricultural Brazil. 9.6% of the capital of the Brazilian economy was directed toward industry by 1884, and by 1885, 11.2%. This figure dropped sharply during the republican period, falling to 5% between 1895 and 1899, and improving slightly to 6% between 1900 and 1904. Still, it would take many years to return to the level that prevailed during the Empire. At the time of its downfall in 1889, monarchical Brazil had 636 factories (representing an annual rate of increase of 6.74% from 1850) with a capital of Rs 401.630:600$000 (annual growth rate of 6.74% since 1850). Of this amount, 60% were employed in the textile sector, 15% in food, 10% in the chemical, 4% in timber, 3.5% in clothing and 3% in metallurgy.
Armed Forces
Overview
The Emperor, as the head of the Executive Power, was the Commander-in-Chief of the Brazilian Armed Forces. He was aided by the Minister of War and the Minister of Navy in regard to matters concerning the Army and the Armada, respectively. Traditionally, the holders of the office of Ministers of War and Navy were civilians but there were some exceptions. The Military were allowed to run and serve in political offices while staying on active duty. However, they did not represent the Army or the Armada but instead the population of the city or province that they were elected by. Pedro I choose nine military as Senators and five (out of fourteen) to the State Council. During the Regency, two were chosen to the Senate and none to the State Council as there was none at the time. Pedro II choose four military to become Senators during the 1840s, two in 1850s and three until the end of his reign. He also choose seven military to be State Counselors during the 1840s and 1850s and three after that.
Armada
The National Armada (later known as the Brazilian Navy), informally known as Imperial Armada, appeared with the independence of the country. It was formed almost in its totality by ships, staff, organizations and doctrines proceeding from the transference of the Portuguese Royal Family in 1808. Some of its members were born Brazilians (until then almost all were forbidden to serve), Portuguese whom had opted to adhere the cause of the separation and foreign mercenaries. Also, some establishments created by king João VI of Portugal were used and incorporated such as: the Department of Navy, Headquarter of the Navy, the Intendancy and Accounting Department, the Arsenal (Shipyard) of the Navy, the Academy of Navy Guards, the Naval Hospital, the Auditorship, the Supreme Military Council, the powder plant, and others. The Brazilian-born Captain da Luís da Cunha Moreira (future viscount of Cabo Frio) was chosen as the first minister of the Navy on October 28, 1822. Also, the British Lord Thomas Alexander Cochrane was nominated the commander the Brazilian Armada and received the rank of “First Admiral”. The fleet was composed then by one ship of the line, four frigates, and other ships in a total of thirty eight warships. The Secretary of Treasury Martim Francisco Ribeiro de Andrada created a national subscription to congregate capital and thus increase the fleet. From all over Brazil contributions were sent. Even the Emperor Pedro I acquired by his own expense a merchant brig (that was renamed "Caboclo") and donated it to the State. The navy fought at the north and also south of Brazil where it had a decisive role on the independence of the country.
After the suppression of the revolt in Pernambuco in 1824 and prior to the Argentina-Brazil War, the navy increased significantly in size and strength. From its 38 ships in 1822, the navy had in its possession 96 modern warships of various types with over 690 cannons. The Armada blocked the estuary of the Rio de la Plata hidering the contact of the United Provinces (as Argentina was called back then) with the cisplatine rebels and the outside world. Some skirmishes had occurred between Brazilian and Argentine ships until the defeat of the Argentine flotilla composed of two corvettes, five brigs and one barquentine near the Island of Santiago in 1827. When Pedro I abdicated in 1831, he left a powerful navy composed of two ships of the line and ten frigates in addition to corvettes, steamships, and other ships in a total of at least eighty warships in peace time.
The long reign of fifty eight years of Pedro II would represent the ending of the growth, and at the same time, the pinnacle of the Brazilian Navy. The Arsenal, Navy department, and the Naval Jail were improved and the Imperial Mariner Corps (formed then by volunteers) was created. Steam navigation was definitively adopted. Brazil quickly modernized the fleet acquiring ships in the foreign and constructing others. It also substituted the old smoothbore cannons for new ones with rifling barrels (that had larger reach and better precision). Improvements were also made in the Arsenals (shipyards) and naval bases that were equipped with new workshops. Ships were constructed in the Arsenal of the Navy in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, Recife, Santos, Niterói and Pelotas. The Armada also successfully fought against all revolts that occured during the Regency (where it made blockades and transported the Army troops) such as: Cabanagem, War of Tatters, Sabinada, Balaiada, amongst others.When Emperor Pedro II was declared of legal age and assumed its constitutional prerogatives in 1840, the Armada had over ninety warships: six frigates, seven corvettes, two barque-schooners, six brigs, eight brig-schooners, sixteen gunboats, twelve schooners, seven armed brigantine-schooners, six steam barques, three transport ships, two armed luggers, two cutters and thirteen larger speedboats. During the 1850s the State Secretary, the Accounting Department of the Navy, the Headquarter of the Navy and the Naval Academy were reorganized and improved. New ships were bought and the ports administration were better equipped. The Imperial Mariner Corps was definitively regularized and the Marine Corps was created (that took the place of the Naval Artillery) as also the Service of Assistance for Invalids and several schools for sailors and craftsmen.
The conflicts in the Platine region did not cease after the war of 1825. The anarchy caused by the despotic Rosas and his desire to subdue Bolívia, Uruguay and Paraguay forced Brazil to intercede. The Brazilian Government sent a naval force of seventeen warships (a ship of the line, ten corvettes and six steamships) commanded by the veteran John Pascoe Grenfell. The Brazilian fleet succeded on passing through the Argentine fort of Toneleros under heavy attack and transported the troops to the theater of operations. More than a decade later the Armada was once again modernized and its old sailing ships gave became forty steamships with more than 250 cannons. There was no more foreign officers anymore. On their place appeared a generation of Brazilian military known for their loyalty to the monarchic regimen such as: Joaquim Marques Lisboa (Marquis of Tamandaré) Francisco Manuel Barroso da Silva (Baron of Amazonas), Joaquim José Inácio de Barros (Viscount of Inhaúma), Luís Filipe de Saldanha da Gama, amongst others. In 1864 the navy fought in the Uruguayan War and immediately afterwards in the War of the Triple Alliance where it annihilated the Paraguayan navy in the Battle of Riachuelo. The navy was further increased with the acquisition of twenty ironclads and six fluvial monitors. At least 9,177 navy military fought in the five years' conflict. Brazilian naval constructors such as Napoleão Level, Trajano de Carvalho and João Cândido Brasil planned new concepts for warships that allowed the country´s Arsenals to keep their competitiveness with other nations. All damage suffered by ships was repaired in addition to various improvements to the ships. In 1870, Brazil had the fifth most powerful navy in the world.
During the 1870s, the Brazilian Government strengthened the navy as the possibility of a war against Argentina over Paraguay´s future became quite real. Thus, it acquired a gunboat and a corvette in 1873, an ironclad and a monitor in 1874 and immediately afterwards two cruisers and another monitor. The improvement of the Armada continued during the 1880s. The Arsenals of the Navy in the provinces of Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, Pará and Mato Grosso continued to build dozens of warships. Also, four torpedo boats were bought. On November 30, 1883, the Practical School of Torpedoes was created and also a workshop devoted to construction and repairing torpedoes and electric devices in the Arsenal of Navy of Rio de Janeiro. This Arsenal constructed four steam gunboats and one schooner, all with iron and steel hulls (the first of these categories constructed in the country). The Imperial Armada reached its apex with the incorporation of the ironclad battleships Riachuelo and Aquidabã (both equiped with torpedo launchers) in 1884 and 1885, respectively. Both ships (considered state-of-the-art by experts from Europe) allowed the Brazilian Armada to retain its position as one of the most powerfull naval forces.
In the last cabinet of the monarchic regimen, the Minister of the Navy Admiral José da Costa Azevedo (the Baron of Ladário) left an unfinished ample project of reorganization and modernization of the navy. The coup that ended the monarchy in Brazil in 1889 was not well accepted by the military of the Armada. Imperial Mariners were attacked when they tried to give their support to the imprisoned Emperor in the City Palace. The Marquis of Tamandaré begged to Pedro II to allow him to fight back the coup. However, the Emperor refused to allow any bloodshed. Tamandaré would be later imprisoned by order of the dictator Floriano Peixoto under the accusation of financing the monarquist military in the Federalist Revolution. The baron of Ladário remained in contact with the exiled Imperial Family, hoping to restoring the monarchy, but ended up ostracized by the republican government. Admiral Saldanha da Gama led the Revolt of the Armada with the objective of restoring the Empire and allied himself with other monarquists that were fighting in the Federalist Revolution. However, all the restoring attempts were violently crushed. Monarchist officers of higher ranks were imprisoned, banished or executed by firing squad without due process of law and their subordinates also suffered harsh punishments.
Army
The National Army, or Imperial Army, during the monarchy was divided in three branches: the 1st Line, which was the Army itself; and the 2nd Line that was formed by the Militias and Ordelies inherited from the colonial times. With the refusal to join the Independence cause by the Portuguese military in the provinces of the Bahia, Maranhão, Pará and Cisplatine, Emperor Pedro I reorganized the troops at his disposal for the imminent conflict. Most of the military stationed in the country remained loyal to the monarch, who made use of troops, equipment and forts for the war operations. The terrestrial force efficiently fought in the north and the south of Brazil, defeating the loyal troops of Portugal. In 1824 the Army of 1st Line had 24,000 men disciplined, trained and equipped just as well as its European equivalents. At the ending of the war of Independence, the Brazilian Armed Forces were already well organized and equipped. This occurred mainly because Pedro I heavily supported the Army. At the same year a battalion was sent to Pernambuco where it successfully quelled the revolt of the Confederation of the Equator.
The Army officers graduation was carried through in the Military Academy (the only engineering school in Brazil up to 1874), although it was not obligatory to study in it to advance in the career. The military from the branches of infantry and cavalry needed to study the disciplines of the 1st (arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry and technical drawing) and 5th year (tactical, strategy, camping, fortification in campaign, terrain reconnaissance and chemistry) only. While the engineers and artillerymen were obliged to carry through the complete course, which resulted in their branchs being the most prestigious. However, infantrymen and cavalrymen were allowed to study the disciplines of the 2nd (algebra, geometry, analytical geometry, differential and integral calculus, descriptive geometry and technical drawing), 3rd (mechanics, ballistics and technical drawing), 4th (spherical trigonometry, physics, astronomy, geodesy, geography and technical drawing), 6th (regular and irregular fortification, attacking and defending strongholds, civil architecture, roads, ports, canals, mineralogy and technical drawing) and 7th year (artillery, mines and natural history) if so they desired to.
The Empire declared war against the United Province of the Rio de la Plata (now Argentina) in 1825 as it was aiding the secessionist revolt of the Brazilian province of Cisplatine. The Argentine and Secessionist troops made use of guerrilla tactics that hindered the much stronger Brazilian Army (1st Line with 27,242 men and 2nd Line with 95,000) of delivering an overwhelming blow against its enemies. At the end of the conflict more than 8,000 Brazilians had died which resulted in the loss of prestige of military career in the country. The military blamed the Emperor for not being able of convincing the Parliament to allow more financial aid to send equipment, munitions and provisions. The liberals, on the other hand, considered the monarch responsible for the high costs of the conflict.
Pedro I´s abdication resulted in the reduction of Army contigent. The liberals were against the Army for ideological and economical reasons. Their objective was to eliminate any possibility of return of Pedro I to Brazil, therefore eliminating one of the institutions most connected to the former Emperor. Some battalions were dissolved while others were transferred to distant provinces. Most of the soldiers was discharged, enlistment was suspended and it was forbidden the promotion of any officer. On August 30, 1831, the liberal regency reduced the Army to less than 10,000 men and later to only 6,000. The battalions formed by mercenaries were also disbanded.
With the intention of assisting the reduced Army the Government created the National Guard on August 18, 1831. The new institution would substitute the old Militias and Orderlies that were extinguished at the same time. The National Guard was formed by all male Brazilians who had an annual income superior to Rs 200$000 (the same value to be an elector). The majority of the male population had condition to be part of the National Guard: someone who worked as a craftsman or clerk reached the demanded minimum value. Even the “ingenuous” (free children of slaves of ex-slaves) were allowed to enlist themselves in the force. Its members were not remunerated and they would need to pay by themselves all expenses related to uniforms and equipment. The sole exception were weapons as they were supplied by the Government. However, the Guard´s members had little if any military skills and they were completely inadequate to the wars of the Industrial age. It did not have permanent troops nor barracks to be lodged. In war times the National Guard was incorporated to the Army of 1st Line. It was, for all effects, a reserve force of the Imperial Army.
The result of the Liberals´s policy towards the Army were soon felt. The Government was incapable of fighting the rebellions that occurred in the country during the second half of the 1830s. The election of the conservative Pedro de Araújo Lima for the office of regent in 1837 changed completely the situation. The Conservative Party restored the Army, reorganizing and reequipping it and increased it to 18.000 men. The Imperial Army acchieved several victories over the provincial revolts, such as in: Cabanagem, Sabinada, Farroupilha, among others. At the beginning of the 1840s a new reorganization in the Army gave it more cohesion and made it more capable. On 1845 the Military College (known before as the Military Academy) was divided in two halves: one remained with the old name, while another one became the Central College. A new reform (Decree nº 585) on September 6, 1850, considerably improved the quality of the officers of the Imperial Army. The progression in the military career from now on would occur through antiquity, merit and academic resume, beyond a clear preference for the military who had concluded the Military College over the ones who did not. The conservative cabinet created on September 20, 1851, a branch of the Military College in Porto Alegre that had a Course of Infantry and Cavalry with disciplines of the 1st and 5th year. The National Guard was reorganized in the same month and became subordinated not the locally elected Judges of Peace anymore, but directly to the Minister of Justice. In 1851 the Imperial Army had more than 37,000 men and participated in the Platine War where it defeated the Argentine Confederation with the contribution of Uruguayan troops and Argentine rebels.
The Uruguayan War (which was followed by the War of the Triple Alliance) revealed the complete abandonment that the Imperial Army passed through since 1852. It did not have enough equipment, ammunition, uniforms or transportation. With only 18,000 men in 1864 it was necessary to search for reserve forces to collaborate with the war effort. The National Guard had 200,000 men on 1864. However, although with impressive numbers, the lack of training and equipment and the resistance of most of its members to be send to the theater of operations considerably annulled the military potential of the institution. From now on the National Guard would be gradually put aside in favor of the Army. The Fatherland Volunteer corps were created on January 7,1865, and received Brazilians who had joined spontaneously and later conscripted ones. The nomination of the marquis of Caxias as the commander of the Imperial Army in the middle of 1866 put an end to the anarchy. Of the 18,000 men in the enemy country in 1865, it raised to 67,365 in 1866, 71,039 in 1867 and finally 82,271 in 1869.
The marquis of Caxias reorganized the troops which received uniforms, equipment and weapons just as good as the ones in the Prussian Army. The health service of the Armed Forces had a little inferior quality than the one in the American Civil War and superior to the one of the Crimean War. The armed conflict lasted for more than five years and cost the life of 50,000 Brazilians. However, the Empire went out of it victorious and kept its supremacy over South America. The Imperial Army mobilized 154,996 men to the war, divided as such: 10,025 military of the Army who were in Uruguay in 1864, 2,047 that were in the province of Mato Grosso, 55,985 Fatherland Volunteers, 60,009 National Guards, 8,570 ex-slaves and other 18,000 National Guards that remained in Brazil to defend it.
The National Guard had its role restricted in 1873 as it could no longer act as a police force and became effectively a reserve force of the Army. Its definitive dissolution, however, would only occur in 1918. From the Military School it was created in 1874 the Polytechnical College of Rio de Janeiro that focused on the course of civil engineering. The Government destined about 27% of the budget for the Army and the Armada and in the fiscal year of 1873-74.
A new generation of turbulent and undisciplined military appeared at the beginning of the 1880s. The old monarquist military, such as: Luis Alves de Lima e Silva (Duke of Caxias), Polidoro da Fonseca Quintanilha Jordão (Viscount of Santa Teresa), Antonio de Sampaio, Manuel Marques de Sousa (Count of Porto Alegre) and Manuel Luis Osório (Marquis of Herval) had deceased. In an Army with only 13,000 men, 7,526 were sent to jail in 1884 for bad behavior. The cadets in the Military College learned about Positivism and discussed politics while completely ignoring any military matter. These men advocated the implantation of a military dictatorship. In 1882 a journalist who made critics to the behavior of the military was assassinated by Army officers in broad day light and kept unpunished.
The republicans stimulated the indisciplinated behavior of these military during the years of 1887 and 1888 having alleged lack of attention and consideration on the part of the Government towards the Army. In 1888 about 19% of the budget he was destined to the Armed Forces. Although the percentage diminished in reference with the overall budget, the real value still thus increased from around Rs 27.000:000 $000 in the fiscal year of 1873-74 to Rs 30.400:000 $000 in 1888. The inflation in the monarchic period was extremely low (for the purpose of comparison, in 1887 occurred a deflation of 16,1%) and it probably did not harm the Armed Forces budget. In 1899, already in the republican period, the budget destined to the Army was only a third of the value of 1889. However, in the period the 1890-1895 the average annual inflation was of 50%.
On November 15, 1889 the monarchy was overthrown by Army troops led by marshal Deodoro da Fonseca who became the leader of the first Brazilian dictatorship. Marshal Câmara (viscount of Pelotas), one of the commanders of the rebel military, affirmed that about 20% of the Imperial Army supported the coup. In the following days several battalions of the Army spread across the country fought against republican forces with intention of stoping the coup. An example was the 25th Infantry Battalion in Desterro (now Florianópolis) that attacked the Republican Club on November 17, 1889. A month later on December 18 in Rio de Janeiro the 2nd Artillery Regiment tried to restore the monarchy. Monarquist military participated in the Federalist Revolution that occurred in 1893 with intention of restoring the Empire. The ones that did not die in battles were imprisoned, deported or executed by firing squad.
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