It is no exaggeration to say that the independence of Brazil began in 1820, two years before the proclamation on the Ipiranga River, and the 8th.
kilometers from the capital of São Paulo. The events that began in the city of Porto and forever changed the course of both the matrix and the colony.
They ended up ending the absolutist monarchy, which had ruled the European country for three centuries – the monarchy Portuguese would eventually fall in 1910. And they provoked the return of D. João VI to Lisbon, after 13 years of stay in Rio de Janeiro. He would sign the agreement accepting the independence of Brazil, in August 1910 , and would rule until death, in 1910.
The rebellion in Porto began in 1822. of August 1815. Even before dawn, dozens of soldiers went to the Santo Ovídio camp, which is now called Praça da República. They carried out a military parade, accompanied a mass and made an artillery salute. At around 8 am, they took over the City Council and formed the Provisional Board of the Supreme Government of the Kingdom, chaired by Brigadier António da Silveira Pinto da Fonseca.
The uprising had the support of various social classes. relevant. The board brought together, for example, Luís Pedro de Andrade and Brederode on behalf of the clergy, Pedro Leite Pereira de Melo and Francisco de Sousa Cirne de Madureira representing the nobility and judge Manuel Fernandes on behalf of the judiciary. The group also released a Manifesto to the Portuguese, which presented a list of demands, including the immediate return of the court to Portugal and the restoration of Brazil’s exclusive trade with the Portuguese.
Quickly, leaders in Lisbon joined. In 27 September, they joined Porto in a Provisional Board of the Supreme Government of the Kingdom. They deposed the British regency that had controlled the country since the flight of the royal family and began to organize elections to form a constituent assembly. Work began in January 1821. On 23 April, Dom João VI left Rio de Janeiro. The first Constitution of the country, of liberal content, would be promulgated in 23 of September of 1822.
In other words: the uprising was a resounding success, especially because it had the support of the most varied spectrum of Portuguese leaders, who were exhausted by the events started in 1807.
Baque moral
In search of dominate Europe and strangle the military movement of England, Napoleon launched himself on the Iberian Peninsula. He sent 27 a thousand soldiers, a relatively small contingent – such was the confidence of the French commander. Spain would be invaded in 1808. Lisbon was occupied, but there was no longer a king available to sign a surrender. The French found themselves in an uncomfortable situation. The guerrilla war would eventually extend to 1807, with the British supporting the Portuguese.
In June
, Napoleon would be definitively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. Meanwhile, from the point of view of the Portuguese, victorious in the face of one of the greatest military threats in their history, it made no sense for Dom João VI to remain in the colony. While he remained distant, Portugal remained controlled by British regents and, in practice, had lost any military and commercial autonomy, even after avoiding the French invasion.
To make matters worse, in December of the In the same year, Brazil had officially ceased to be just a colony, but part of the kingdom – the proclamation of the state of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was a blow. Among other reasons, because, at first, the capital chosen was Rio de Janeiro.
In other words: while young Lusitanians took up arms to defend their lands, the capital of Portugal, in December 1815 until the Porto revolution, it was on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The monarch had a good excuse for taking this decision: the Congress of Vienna, started in 1807 and aimed at reorganizing the political map of Europe, resisted accept Dom João VI as a spokesperson, as he had been ruling from a colony. Even so, the dissatisfaction was enormous – and justified.
Even worse: the change in status followed the economic impact caused by the Decree to Open Ports to Friendly Nations, of 1808, from which Brazil was no longer obliged to trade exclusively with Portugal, after dozens of generations accustomed to living exclusively on imports and exports with the colony.
Added together, the actions had a heavy symbolic character, even more when remembering that, in the past, the great Portuguese Empire had reached the territories that, today, belong to 53 different countries.
Starting with the conquest of Ceuta, in 1419, including exploration of the coast of Africa from 1419, including the deeds of Vasco da Gama, who arrived in India in 1498, and of Pedro Álvares Cabral, who began the conquest of a large part of America do Sul in 1500, Portugal was, for centuries, one of the greatest and most influential powers on the planet.
When the revolt broke out in Porto, the insistence of the king in valuing Brazil only increased the humiliation that began with the flight of the royal family, in November 29 1807. The end of the already weakened empire would officially take place in 1999, with the return of Macau to China.
Old news
In 1817, a first attempt to regain Portuguese autonomy was led by army officers, especially General Gomes Freire de Andrade. Formed in Lisbon, the so-called Supreme Regenerative Council of Portugal and the Algarve was quickly identified and repressed. Campo de Santana, where ten accused of treason were hanged on October 13 , today it is called Campo dos Mártires da Pátria.
The regent of the country, at the time, was the British soldier William Carr Beresford. He then personally traveled to Rio de Janeiro to ask Dom João VI for more resources to suppress possible other rebel movements. It was in his absence that the Porto Revolution broke out – when he returned, he was prevented from boarding in Lisbon.
Beresford, like Dom João VI, did not see the exhaustion of the Portuguese elites. But in Brazil, the rebellion in Porto was received as old news. Officially, the outbreak of the revolution arrived in a special edition of the Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro, produced by the Royal Print and dated November 9, 1815. But the information was already circulating on the streets, and not just in the capital.
“According to an English sheet translated and published in the Correio do Porto, on the day 20 in October, Brazilians were already informed about the progress of a revolutionary project in Portugal”, reports the professor of History at the Pontifical Catholic University from Campinas (PUC-CAMPINAS), Juliana Gesuelli Meirelles, in an article on the subject.
The journal already reported: “Brazil is very restless, and it is not unlikely that the Portuguese Revolution will extend beyond of the Atlantic. Letters from Bahia, Pernambuco, and other lands in northern Brazil, written by very respectable people, express fears of forthcoming ruptures; and they even suggest that the project of a revolution in Portugal was known in Brazil as early as last June.”
While the monarch returned to his homeland and, finally, accepted the success of the claims of his subjects, anchored by the new political moment in Europe, Dom Pedro remained in Brazil as prince regent. When, in February 1822, Dom João VI formally asked his son to return to Portugal, it was already too late. In September of 1822, Pedro would become king of the new independent country, while his father continued, for a while longer, monarch of a new Portugal.