Useful Notes / The Empire of Brazil

Independence Or Death!

The Empire of Brazil was a constitutional monarchy that governed Brazil from 1822 to 1889. It was notable for being the only time a sovereign state in the Americas was headed for an extended period by a monarch, aside from Mexico and Haiti, as well as for being (in its time) a relatively stable nation amidst the political chaos of 19th century Latin America.

Brazil, by the 1880s, had become a stable, prosperous, and powerful nation in the Americas, second only to the United States. And yet it all came to a quiet and sudden end in late 1889.

Background

Since the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the New World between Spain and Portugal, and Pedro Alvares Cabral's 1500 landing, Brazil had been an integral part of the Portuguese Empire ^note except for some brief intervals between Spanish and Dutch occupation.

Brazil, like the rest of Latin America, was set up by its colonial master to be an extractive mercantile economy that would provide cheap resources to be used by the Metropole. Brazil's biggest industries would be sugar and gold mining, with most of the dirty work being done by African slaves. Brazil would be the most prominent participant in the Atlantic Slave Trade, with 1/3 of all African slaves being shipped to Brazil.

The Napoleonic Wars and The Flight of the Braganzas

Ironically, it would be a minor Corsican noble who would change Brazil's history and set it on a political development much different from the rest of Latin America.

In 1807, Napoléon Bonaparte was desperate to end the British threat to his burgeoning empire. To his dismay, the Kingdom of Portugal was refusing to abide by his Continental System, a continent-wide trade embargo set up by Napoleon to break British resolve. Portugal's ruler, Prince Regent John^note , While his mother Maria was still technically the Queen, she suffered a nervous breakdown, leaving John to effectively serve as Portugal's de facto king, didn't want to participate in the Continental System since it would mean the British would turn on Portugal and uses its powerful navy to (at best) block access to Brazil, devastating Portugal's economy. He also knew Napoleon would invade Portugal if he didn't abide by the Continental System. So John decided when Napoleon did invade in 1807, to evacuate himself and his court to Brazil to both keep trade with the United Kingdom and avoid being imprisoned by Napoleon.

Prince Regent John and his court arrived in Brazil in 1808. The Prince proceeded to elevate Rio to the Portuguese Empire's capital, which proved extremely important for Brazil's development. As stated above, Portugal designed Brazil to be merely a colony set up to extract raw materials and put massive restrictions on not only who Brazil could trade with but the type of institutions it was allowed. By making Rio the imperial capital, Prince Regent John not only ended trade restrictions but allowed Brazil to have the political and government institutions of a modern European state, unlike the rest of Latin America, which has struggled (and still struggles to this day) to build a modern political and government systems based on cooperation rather than extraction.

Independence

When The Napoleonic Wars finally ended, rather than return to Portugal, John was content to remain in Brazil and keep it the seat of the Empire, even allowing himself to be officially crowned King in Rio after his mother Maria's death in 1816. However, because he couldn't govern from a colony, he chose to elevate Brazil to a Kingdom, renaming his vast empire United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves. This effectively put Brazil on equal footing with the British, allowing its economic and political systems to mature.

With Portugal undergoing a liberal Revolution in Brazil in 1820, John, fearing Brazil could potentially declare itself independent of Portugal in his absence, put his son, Prince Pedro, on the throne as Regent of Brazil so the vast domain could remain under the rule of the Braganzas, before sailing back to Portugal.

Just as John predicted, the liberal revolutionaries not only took away John's absolute power and forced him to accept a constitution but tried to force Brazil back into the status of a colony. Brazil was enjoying the right to trade with the rest of Europe, and returning to a colony would regress Brazil's economic and social development. On September 7, 1822, Prince Pedro declared Brazil an independent Kingdom. After a relatively bloodless war that lasted into 1824, Portugal finally recognized Brazil's independence in 1825.

Scandals and Chaos of Pedro I's reign

Pedro I, unlike his father, believed in the idea of liberal and constitutional governance. So when he declared Brazil independent, he and his courtiers sought to build a Constitution governed along liberal democratic lines. While the Constitution still gave the Emperor the powers of a chief executive and restricted the franchise to property owners, it still ensured freedom of speech, religious freedom, right to assembly, and a separation of powers, ensuring Brazil had a greater degree of the rule of law then the rest of Latin America.

However, Pedro's new constitution did not guarantee his reign would be easy. He faced numerous revolts by provinces who believed his overtly centralized government would not respect their needs and protests by liberal politicians that believed his government was too autocratic. Pedro lost even more support when his army failed to stop the secession of the Cisplanta Province, which broke away to become Uruguay.

His own personal life was even more hectic. Pedro had been a serial philanderer, much to the dismay of his consort, the Hapsburg princess Maria Leopoldina. But soon, he began parading his mistress, Domitila de Castro, openly in front of his wife. Maria Leopoldina's mental health was ruined, mainly as Pedro began emotionally abusing her and isolating her in a palace. The psychological damage from Pedro's mistreatment, along with a miscarriage, drove Maria Leopoldina into an early grave. The revelations that he abused his wife, on top of rumors that Pedro deliberately caused the miscarriage by assaulting her, further damaged Pedro's reputation amongst the Brazilian public and increased calls for his resignation.

Finally, Pedro faced a succession crisis in Portugal. After his father died in 1826, Pedro I inherited the throne, but preferring to reign in Brazil, he passed the crown on to his young daughter Maria. However, his treacherous brother Miguel, who Pedro wanted as a regent (and Maria's husband, once she came of age), tried to overthrow his daughter and return Portugal to an absolute monarchy.

Brazil's political turmoil exploded in 1831 when a street brawl erupted between Pedro's Portuguese-born supporters and native-born Brazilian liberals. Pedro's reputation in Brazil deteriorated so much that even his soldiers joined the protests. With his reputation in Brazil gone, Pedro I abdicated in favor of his son, Pedro II, knowing his Brazilian-born son would have more popularity than himself. He returned to Portugal and successfully fought a civil war to regain his father's throne for his daughter, only to die shortly after his victory in 1834.

The Regency

With Pedro II only five years old, a regency was set up to govern the country until Pedro II became a legal adult. However, the regency found itself unable to manage Brazil's numerous grievances properly. Without a monarch who could properly arbitrate the system, as was required by the Constitution, Brazil stumbled from one revolt to the other. The regency attempted to cool dissent with an 1834 reform that would expand regional autonomy, but this only added gasoline to the fire as the reform increased the aspirations of regional leaders at the expense of central authority.

The rebellions included protests by landowners against taxes and slave revolts, which threw the issue of human bondage into greater question.

No longer having faith in their ability to govern and fearing Brazil could break apart, the Regency and the General Assembly decided the only way to regain legitimacy was for Pedro to take the throne early. At the young age of 14, Pedro was officially crowned Emperor of Brazil.

War and Ascendancy

Despite a rocky start to Pedro's reign, including dominance by a faction of courtiers, a poor start to his arranged marriage with Princess Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies^note A poor start was putting it mildly; Teresa's not-so-pretty-appearance publicly mortified Pedro. While their marriage became more friendly and respectful with time, they never were truly in love, and the premature death of his two sons, by the 1850s, Pedro II had consolidated power and proven himself to be an able statesman. He increased Brazil's international prestige by successfully navigating several crises.

The first was a crisis over the slave trade. Britain forced Brazil into abolishing the slave trade in the 1830s, but while Brazil paid lip service to the demand, the importation of slaves continued off the books. The British navy began attacking and seizing ships that continued to import slaves. Himself an abolitionist, in 1850, Pedro II forced the General Assembly to pass a bill that would give the government powers to stop the slave trade by threatening to abdicate. The second was a brief war started by Argentina's dictator, Juan Manuel de Rosas, who sought to weaken Brazil. The Brazilian army emerged victorious from the war and set up a friendly regime. There was also a brief dispute with the British Empire over a British ship that sank in Brazilian waters. While it didn't escalate into outright war, Pedro II was lauded for holding his ground against a significant world power.

But then came the biggest crisis of Pedro II's career: The War of the Triple Alliance. When Uruguay collapsed into a civil war in 1864, Brazil intervened to protect its interests in its former territory. This drew the ire of Paraguay and its dictator, Francisco Solano Lopez, who sought to use the conflict to regain influence in Uruguay and become a player in South America. Lopez's army invaded Brazil, later dragging in Argentina. Pedro II gained great respect for going to the front directly to command his troops. Despite the war dragging on longer than anyone expected, mainly due to Lopez's tenacity and skill as a guerilla leader, by 1870, Lopez was killed, and his army and country lay in ruins. Brazil lost 50,000 soldiers and amassed a large foreign debt, but the prestige and power of the Empire were preserved.

With A Whimper, Not A Bang

Having emerged victorious from Latin America's most significant interstate conflict, the Empire of Brazil had become the unquestioned and celebrated hegemon of South America and the second significant power in the Americas after the United States. The Empire's last two decades showed tremendous promise: the economy was booming, the country took its first baby steps toward industrialization, its slavery system was gradually being abolished, millions of European immigrants flooded into Brazil to build up its industry and agriculture^note and, on a darker note, maintain "racial purity" through scientific racism, and Pedro II was renowned around the world as an enlightened philosopher king. When Dom Pedro II visited the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, he left such a positive impression on the American people that he may have received write-in votes for that year's election. However, this progress was not to last. Underneath the image of prosperity and peace, several factors slowly eroded the monarchy's prestige.

1. Abolitionism: For his first few decades in power, Pedro II took no stance on abolition despite being privately opposed to slavery and holding none of the racial prejudice men in his day held. But with many African slaves being freed to fight in the Paraguayan War, the plight of slaves grew too great for Pedro to ignore. In 1871, The Law of Free Birth was passed, which banned the enslavement of children born to slaves. In 1888, slavery was finally abolished for good with the passage of the Golden Law. However, Pedro alienated the ultraconservative landowners with abolition. By not only taking away their slaves without compensation but also taking a stance on slavery, Pedro II ceased to be, in their eyes, a neutral arbitrator who could be above politics.
2. The Rise of New Elites: Pedro II had been brought to power by elites who were desperate to prevent the country's dissolution. Pedro II's was so successful that it ended the period of anarchy. Still, by the 1870s, there was a new generation of elites who had only known the prosperity and stability of Pedro II and no longer saw the monarchy as an indispensable pillar of the state.
3. The Growth of the Military: The War of the Triple Alliance led to a massive expansion of the size and prestige of the Brazilian army. However, this also weakened some of Pedro II's once unquestionable prestige, as the army itself was seen as a stable institution that could act in a crisis. The massive size of the army meant it became another particular interest the central government was forced to appease, and many officers felt a Republican government would do more to represent their interests than the civilian politicians who ran the empire.
4. Growing Liberal Opposition: Many progressive leaders saw the Empire as an outdated institution that couldn't represent the common man. An image that was not helped by the limits on voting franchise and how long the government had dragged its feet on abolition, to the point that it would be the last nation in the Americas to abolish chattel slavery.
5. Pedro's disillusionment: While Pedro II was steadfast in his duties as a monarch, he deeply resented the throne that had been forced on him at the tender age of five and the workload it demanded of him. The premature death of his two sons convinced him early on that the throne was not to be preserved. While his last living daughter, Princess Isabel, was a well-educated woman who competently served as regent during Pedro's trips abroad ^note  She had the honor of signing the anti-slavery bills into law, Pedro II and his advisors didn't believe a woman could handle the responsibilities of a monarch, and Isabel herself had no real interest in the throne. His vacations abroad further eroded his interest in the throne, as he finally got a taste of the freedom he had been denied due to his duties, and by the last years of his reign, he largely dispensed with the pageantry of the monarchy and neglected the duties of the crown, both out of disinterest and his failing health, wearing away at the awe and splendor it was once held.
   
   

All these issues came to a head on November 15, 1889, when Deodoro da Fonseca, a Brazilian army officer, launched a coup against a prime minister that he felt was not doing enough to support the army. When he heard false rumors that Pedro II would name one of his rivals to the office of prime minister, he declared Brazil was now a republic. Exhausted by decades of rule and not wanting to inflict a civil war on the populace, Pedro II chose a quiet exile despite having a chance at retaining his throne. He died in Paris two years later.

Legacy

As inept juntas and poor Republican governments have plagued Brazil's post-imperial history, many Brazilians have considered the Empire a golden age. The reign of Pedro II, at least, is seen by many as a benchmark for each Brazilian leader, whether President or General, to be measured by.

There were some pro-monarchist rebellions in the years following Pedro's overthrow, but these movements were too small to be effective. And among a small following of conservative Brazilians, including Pedro's descendants who still wear the banner of the House of Braganza, some believe a return to the monarchy would bring Brazil back to the prestige it once held.