The late José Murilo de Carvalho, Lúcia Bastos, and Marcello Basile, in 2012, released a fascinating book titled Às armas, Cidadãos! Panfletos manuscritos da independência do Brasil (1820–1823) (‘To arms, Citizens! Manuscript pamphlets from the Independence of Brazil’) which throw a fascinating light upon a major historical event which, in English language historiography at least, is usually told from the viewpoint of high politics. This book, an edited collection of pro-independence slogans, pamphlets, broadsides, and essays written by the Brazilian people, will correct the very ‘elitist’ view of Brazilian independence, and a few glances at its content will be given here.

First, however, let us understand the brief history of Brazil as it progressed from colony, to capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, and thence to empire… (All translations herein are, of course, my own)

Brazil: From Colony to Capital of a United Kingdom

The Portuguese arrived in Brazil in the year 1500 when a fleet of ships, under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral (1467–1620),^[1] landed on the coast of what would become the province of Bahia. The Portuguese crown, being more interested in its Asian trading outposts, did little to develop Brazil at first, and what little development did happen occurred as a result of the crown’s parcelling out of land to nobleman who then purchased African slaves to work on it.

For the next 300 years or so, Brazil remained as a predominantly agrarian slave-owning society. This state of affairs changed, however, with the arrival in Brazil in 1808 of the Portuguese ruler Dom João VI and his royal court. Fleeing the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal, in 1815 Brazil, which had previously been a mere colony, was now the centre of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves due to a decree passed by Dom João in that year:

There being constantly in my royal mind the most lively desire to cause to prosper those states that the Divine Providence has confided to my sovereign rule; and giving, at the same time, its due importance to the magnitude and locality of my domains in America, to the copiousness and variety of the precious elements of wealth it contains; and knowing besides how advantageous to my faithful subjects in general will be a perfect union and identity between my kingdoms of Portugal, the Algarves, and my dominions of Brazil … my kingdom of Portugal, the Algarves, and Brazil, shall form from henceforth one only and united kingdom under the title of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves.^[2]

The elevation of a former colony into the centre of the empire was something truly unprecedented in the modern history of colonialism and imperialism.^[3] But cultural life in Brazil flourished. Printing presses were set up, professional societies were established, a national library was founded, and industry and commerce in Rio de Janeiro began to increase.^[4]

The Liberal Revolution in Portugal

With the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815, the Portuguese began clamouring for the return of their king. Matters came to a head in 1820 during the Portuguese Revolução Liberal (the Liberal Revolution) and, fearing the end of his dynasty if he did not comply, Dom João relented and returned to Portugal, leaving his son Pedro (the future Dom Pedro I) in Brazil.

Dom Pedro I was a bright young man, schooled in the great works of European literature. He read and spoke English and French fluently and had a fondness for Latin literature. His aristocratic upbringing did not make him a snob, however, for as a child he preferred mixing with servants and stable boys, several of whom remained his friend throughout his life.^[5] Headstrong and bullish as well, his upbringing in Brazil made him feel more Brazilian than Portuguese.

The Corte in Portugal had other designs, however; they demanded, not only the return of the king and his son Pedro, but sought to reduce Brazil to the status of a colony again to restore Portugal’s ‘dignity’ which, since the absence of its monarch, became a virtual protectorate of the British Empire under Lord Strangford’s administration in Lisbon. Many Brazilians did not want a return to colony status and Pedro was convinced ‘to remain and proclaim the independence of Brazil’.^[6]

The Contribution of the Common People

The Independence of Brazil, as we noted previously, is usually a tale (in English-language history books) which is told at the level of high politics. It is seen as a story in which the only players are diplomats, emperors, and army chiefs. Indeed, until Bastos, Carvalho, and Basile’s book, even in Brazilian historiography the contribution of the common people, and the writing of their ‘papelinhos’ (‘little papers’) was little known.[7]

Broadsides and pamphlets, making quick points and usually produced en masse and distributed quickly and widely during moments of political turbulence, were by no means exclusive to Brazil. Indeed, they were a key component in the development of the public sphere in early modern Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As one example of this the editors cite the numerous hastily printed pamphlets produced during the English Civil War and the French and American Revolutions. Indeed, part of the justification for separation from Portugal was premised on Brazilians’ European heritage—for Portugal was a nation which itself fought for national self-determination first from the Moors and then from Spain—as a handwritten pamphlet from Bahia in 1821 made clear:

BAHIAN HEROES! TO ARMS!

Glory calls to you. Your illustrious ancestors from the Douro Valley and the Tagus give ye the example and wait for ye.[8] Shout boldly—Long live the Constitution of Brazil, and the King who will not refuse it![9]

The shorter handwritten notes, plastered in public squares, took the form of the above, being mainly an exhortation to support the cause of independence. The following, from September 1821, is typical:

TO ARMS CITIZENS! It’s time for arms!

Not a moment more should ye lose

If to the force of reason kings yield not,

From arms to power shall kings yield.[10]

Unsurprisingly, the largest part of pro-independence campaigning came from the then capital of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. The other major centre of the pro-independence movement was the country’s first capital, Bahia, and the Bahian pamphlet section is one of the most extensive in the entire book.

While many commoners were in favour of Brazil, there were some who were hesitant over making a complete and irreparable rupture with Portugal, notably businessmen and merchants. They had a ready market for their goods in Portugal and political unrest is generally bad for business. It remained, therefore, for our anonymous pamphleteers to make the case for independence to traders, as one Bahian writer tried in 1821:

Traders of Bahia! Ye who are the nerve of the state; ye upon whom despotism has the most weight; and whose interests have been least protected; what do ye!! Your brothers, and associates from Europe have opened the path of glory. Follow them; and sing with them the health song of the liberty of Brazil—Long live the Constitution, and the just King, who will not overturn it.[11]

Brazilian independence was a strange beast. It was headed by a member of a European royal dynasty. Yet many of its advocates were republicans who, given the choice, would have followed that style of government pursued by the then young United States and the Spanish American colonies. Yet as Prince Pedro had supported independence, and given that it was widely believed that he would grant a constitution guaranteeing basic rights, then many simply plumped for Pedro and constitutional monarchy.

We see this curious blend of constitutional monarchism fused with classical republican thinking in a tapestry, produced also in the 1820s when these pamphlets were being written, which showed George Washington looking on from heaven over Prince Pedro. The name of the person who made the tapestry remains unknown to this day, yet to it author, rights and a constitution are what matters—both of these are achievable either in a republic or a liberal monarchy (though republicanism never disappeared from Brazilian political discourse even after independence was gained).

Yet, given the history of the Portuguese monarchy’s absolutist tendencies, some of these anonymous broadsides thought it wise to warn any would-be king of Brazil that his power emanated from the people. Brazilians wanted independence, but they also wanted a constitution, and one which looked like that which the Liberals in Portugal were demanding, namely: national sovereignty, separation of powers, freedom of the press, free speech, and freedom of assembly. Such was the content of one broadside titled ‘Aviso’ (or in this context: ‘Warning’):

From the People to the King is power given,

It’s up to the people to legislate

If this warning the King heed not,

To arms shall his dormant power yield.

Of the nation the King is no more than a chief,

To execute the law imposed by it

How is it possible that the king then says?

No! No! Citizens! That is the answer!!

Long live the King who swears

[By] the wisdom of the Constitution

Which by the Court was given

To the Portuguese nation.[12]

Bastos’s, Carvalho’s, and Basile’s book, containing many more pamphlets than I have presented in this short account, make it clear that was going in Brazil’s major cities between 1821 and 1822 was nothing less than a ‘literary war’ (‘guerra literária’) of intense political debates concerning the form of government and separation from Portugal.

The Empire of Brazil

Brazil’s Declaration of Brazilian Independence was made on 7 September 1822, when Pedro wrote a letter to his father informing him of the country’s new status as a sovereign nation.^[13] On 12 October, the Municipal Council of Rio de Janeiro crowned young Pedro as Pedro I, Constitutional Emperor of Brazil, and ruler of the newly-christened Empire of Brazil.

It took another two years for Dom Pedro to fully secure Brazil’s independence as the Portuguese Cortes was determined to hold on to Brazil. Yet by 1824, with relatively little bloodshed apart from a few skirmishes, Brazil was independent:

The Brazilian aristocracy had its wish: Brazil made a transition to independence with comparatively little disruption and bloodshed. But this meant that independent Brazil retained its colonial social structure: monarchy, slavery, large landed estates, monoculture, an inefficient agricultural system, a highly stratified society, and a free population that was 90 percent illiterate.^[14]

Abdication of Dom Pedro I

Amiable he may have been, but Dom Pedro I lacked the conciliatory powers needed to guide the nation’s young parliament. The broadside ‘Aviso’, quoted earlier, tried to warn the king that power emanated only from the people. Emperor Dom Pedro I may have started out as a liberal, but he soon showed himself to be a king more in the mould of a European absolute monarch than a liberal king.

The question of the emperor’s role in parliament, and a refusal to countenance any curb to his powers, led to his abdication on 7 April 1831. This paved the way for his young son to rule the country under a regency. Pedro I’s son, Dom Pedro II, proved to be a much more amiable, more liberal, and much more conciliatory king than his father.

References

[1] Much of this first section is taken from a previous article: Stephen Basdeo, ‘Dom Pedro II: The Emperor of Brazil in the Victorian Periodical Press’, Reynolds’s News and Miscellany, 30 January 2022.

[2] João VI, ‘Decree Elevating Brazil’, in The Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics, ed. by Robert M. Levine and John J. Crocitti (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 56–57.

[3] Patrick Wilcken, Empire Adrift: The Portuguese Court in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–21 (London: Bloomsbury, 2004), 6.

[4] Robert M. Levine and John J. Crocitti, ‘Introduction’, in The Brazil Reader, 7.

[5] C.H. Haring, Empire in Brazil: A New World Experiment with Monarchy, 2^nd edn (New York: Norton, 1968), p. 12.

[6] ‘Declaration of Brazilian Independence’, in The Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics, ed. by Robert M. Levine and John J. Crocitti (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 63–64.

[7] José Murilo de Carvalho, Lúcia Bastos, and Marcello Basile, eds., Às armas, Cidadãos! Panfletos manuscritos da independência do Brasil (1820–1823) (S. Paulo: Editora Schwartz, 2012), 7.

[8] I have used the older ‘ye’ because the authors, in addressing their audience, use ‘Vós’, rarely used today in Brazil or Portugal, but which is different to other authors’ uses of ‘Vocês’

[9] Anonymous, ‘Panfleto 4’, in Às armas, Cidadãos! Panfletos manuscritos da independência do Brasil, in Carvalho, Bastos, and Basile, 57. In original: Heroís Baianos! Às armas! A glória vos chama. Vossos ilustres Ascendentes do Douro e Tejo deram-vos o exemplo, e por vos esperam. Gritai audazes – Viva a Constituição do Brasil e o Rei que não a recusará.

[10] Anonymous, ‘Panfleto 17’, in Às armas, Cidadãos! Panfletos manuscritos da independência do Brasil, in Carvalho, Bastos, and Basile, 128. In original: Ás armas cidãos. É tempo Ás Armas. Nem um momento mais, perder deveis. Se a força da Razão os Reis não cedem das ármas ao Poder sedão os Reis.

[11] Anonymous, ‘Panfleto 6’, in Às armas, Cidadãos! Panfletos manuscritos da independência do Brasil, in Carvalho, Bastos, and Basile, 65. In original: Negociantes da Bahia! Vós que sois o nervo do estado; Vós sobre quem o despotismo tem mais pesado; e cujos interesses têm sido menos protegidos; que fazeis!! Os vossos Irmãos, e associados da Europa têm aberto a estrada da glória. Segui-os pois; e entoai com eles O Cântico saudável da Liberdade no Brasil–Viva a Constituição e o justo Rei, que não contravirá.

[12] Anonymous, ‘Panfleto 28’, in Às armas, Cidadãos! Panfletos manuscritos da independência do Brasil, in Carvalho, Bastos, and Basile, 195. In original: Pelo Povo ao Rei, o poder é dado

Ao povo portanto legislar compete

Se a este aviso o Rei não cede

Às armas cederá o seu poder inerte

Da Nação o Rei não é mais que Chefe

Para executar a Lei por ela imposta

Como é possível então que o Rei dite?

Não! Não! Cidadãos! ex a resposta!!!

Viva o Rei que jurar

A sábia Constituição

Que pelas cortes for dada

Da Portuguesa Nação

[13] See Alan K. Manchester, ‘The Recognition of Brazilian Independence’, The Hispanic American Historical Review. 31: 1 (1951), 80–96.

[14] Benjamin Keen and Keith A. Haynes, A History of Latin America, 8th ed. (Boston: Cengage, 2009), p. 221