THE EMPIRE OF BRAZIL
Portuguese acquiescence in Dom Pedro's sovereignty was brought about
largely by the instrumentality of Lord Cochrane, who, after harrying the
deported garrison of Bahia when on its voyage to Europe, brought about
the capitulation of Maranhao and Para, acting in concert with Grenfell,
another ocean free-lance, second only to Cochrane in daring and
versatility.
In Montevideo the General commanding the Portuguese garrison declared
for independence, and left the soldiers to make their own choice;
whereupon they followed the remainder of the Portuguese troops to
Europe. Uruguay, left to its own choice, retained its allegiance to
Brazil until Artigas, a famous leader and partisan of liberty, stirred
up the people. The Brazilian troops entered Montevideo on January 20,
1817, and the Emperor sent his picture to the Cabildo Hall, an act which
brought about the appearance of a most extraordinary document, drawn up
by the officials of the town. When the portrait appeared they announced
that--
"A mixed sensation of trembling and delight seized us, as if we
were in the presence of the Lord."
In justice to the inhabitants of Montevideo in general, it must be said
that this fulsome and despicable effusion was the work of only a few,
and was hostile to the sentiments of, and strenuously condemned by, the
general public.
The first Brazilian Assembly, as soon as convoked, set to work to frame
its first Constitution, a matter which was found extremely difficult.
The fact that Brazil had been an independent monarchy for some years
helped to combat the views of those who shouted "Liberty!" too loudly,
and would fain have abandoned practice for theory. It was understood
that the first requisites were order and security, together with
reasonable checks on authority. Further, it was realized that there must
be sufficient elasticity to meet future needs and circumstances.
But for the Emperor, the forming of the Constitution would have been a
failure. Almost immediately after his first opening of the Assembly he
laid before it a sketch of the Constitution that they had to form. "The
recent Constitutions," he said, "founded on the models of those of 1791
and 1792, had been acknowledged as too abstract and metaphysical for
execution. This had been proved by the example of France, and more
recently by that of Spain and Portugal. We have need of a Constitution
where the powers may be so divided and defined that no one branch can
arrogate to itself the prerogative of another; a Constitution which may
be an unsurmountable barrier against all invasion of the royal
authority, whether aristocratic or popular, which will overthrow anarchy
and cherish the tree of liberty, beneath whose shade we shall see the
union and the independence of the Empire flourish--in a word, a
Constitution that will excite the admiration of other nations, and even
of our enemies, who will consecrate the triumph of our principles by
adopting them."
There was, however, too much of self-denial in the Emperor's views to
meet with the approbation of the Assembly. At the head of the Ministry
were the brothers Andrada--men who in earlier days had rendered great
services to Dom Pedro, but who had grown somewhat arbitrary,
overbearing, and impatient, and now presumed on their past services in
establishing the Empire to tyrannize over both the Emperor and the
Assembly. In the end the members of the Assembly forced the brothers to
resign, at which the people rose and drew Jose Bonifacio in triumph
through the streets of Rio to his official residence.
Fearing the people, the Assembly reinstated the Andradas for a period of
eight months, after which they were again ejected. From this time on
they became violent opponents of the Assembly and the Court, seemingly
determined that if they could not rule, nobody else should. Their
newspaper, the _Tamayo_, was a powerful organ in the capital, and proved
itself as unsparing as it was libellous in its attacks.
It was owing to obstruction of this kind that for a long while no
advance was made in the formation of a Constitution, for as the Emperor
made suggestions, the Andradas caused them to be thrown out. Bills
brought in by members were never read, and the brothers even went so far
as to attack the Portuguese employes of the Emperor, and when one of
these wrote a scathing article against them, they used personal violence
toward him. He appealed to the Assembly, whereupon the Andradas insisted
that he and all his fellows should be dismissed.
Week by week the _Tamayo_ grew more virulent and threatening against the
Emperor. Dom Pedro grew alarmed, for the Andradas were wealthy and
powerful, and the Emperor felt that their disaffection might be a sign
of general popular feeling--that the republican movement was gaining
ground too much for his safety. His actions against the republican
movement in various parts of the Empire, necessary though they were,
had, nevertheless, forced him into connection with, and reliance on, the
Portuguese residents and militia, a class almost as distasteful to the
liberal Brazilians as the Portuguese whom they had driven out of the
country. Thoroughly liberal in his own tendencies, Pedro yet felt that
the Andradas might be expressing a general discontent with his rule.
The Andradas, at the head of the popular party, drove the Emperor to the
use of extreme measures by their insolence and turbulent intrigues. He
took the law into his own hands. The brothers had induced the Assembly
to declare itself permanent, but, not unlike Cromwell in a different
species of crisis, Pedro surrounded the Chamber with troops and guns,
dispersed the Deputies, and captured the three Andradas, together with
two of their principal friends. These five he deported to France without
the formality of a trial.
At this the popular party took alarm, but the Emperor pointed out that
he had no other course left; he had acted from no desire to impair the
freedom of the people, but from necessity. The proclamation which he
issued at this time stated that "though he had, from regard to the
tranquillity of the Empire, thought fit to dissolve the third Assembly,
he had in the same decree convoked another, in conformity with the
acknowledged constitutional rights of his people."
With regard to the forming of the Constitution, he left it no longer to
the Assembly, but appointed a committee of ten persons to settle the
sketch he had drawn up.
The Republican and ultra-Liberal party, awed by the salutary treatment
meted out to the Andradas, grew furious at the further energetic
measures of the Emperor, for they saw in Dom Pedro's policy an attempt
to gain absolute dominance. Open rebellion broke out all over the
country, and a Republic was actually proclaimed in Pernambuco, Ceara,
the northern provinces generally, and in the south. Uruguay for the last
time revolted, and severed the tie which bound her to the Empire, having
never since been subject to Brazil.
[Illustration: PALACE AND GREAT SQUARE IN RIO DE JANEIRO.
A century ago.]
The moderate people wavered between the two sides. They saw in
Republicanism only anarchy, while the Emperor's _coup d'etat_ inspired
them with fear of his government. He himself, seeing that a striking
move was necessary, sought the assistance of the Town Council of Rio,
and with their aid adopted the Constitution he had drawn up, without
submitting it to the Assembly. On March 24, 1824, he swore to the
Constitution in public, trusting to the freedom and fairness which it
embodied to gain him adherence.
This move was perfectly successful, for wherever the Constitution was
proclaimed the Republican party fell to pieces. The principles of the
document were so simple, liberal, and practical, that the Republican
party could not ask more than the Emperor gave. By this Pedro saved his
throne, beyond doubt, and gradually the provincial authorities and the
people of the country accepted the situation, and swore to observe the
new Constitution.
In the meanwhile a species of minor maritime warfare was carried on in
the River Plate between the Brazilian fleet and the Argentine vessels
commanded by Admiral Brown, in the course of which the Brazilians
suffered not a little, and the prestige of the Imperial fleet in
consequence diminished.
On December 11, 1826, the Empress died in childbirth at the early age of
twenty-nine. She had come out from Austria determined to make the ways
of Brazil her own. On her first arrival she was considered lovely, and
there is no doubt that her fair, clear complexion, blue eyes, and
golden hair were immensely admired by folk themselves almost invariably
possessed of raven locks. Some while after she had arrived in the
country of her adoption the Empress is said to have neglected her
personal appearance to a rather regrettable extent, adopting the ways of
the Brazilian country-side rather than those of the capital. Thus she
accustomed herself to large heavy boots adorned with enormous spurs, and
would ride astride on a horse, her hair being suffered to hang loose
about her face and shoulders. In fact, she paid not the slightest
attention to those attractions with which Nature had endowed her. She
was a being of intense charity and love, polished to a degree, an
accomplished letter-writer, and a lover of the fine arts in general.
Had the Empress bestowed less care on others and more upon her own
person, there is little doubt but that she would have led a happier
life, for the Emperor, surrounded by the temptations which are always in
the path of crowned heads, allowed his affections to stray. Indeed, so
wrapped up was Dom Pedro in his liaison, that the unfortunate Empress,
under pressure, found her rival attached to her Court as
lady-in-waiting. Her meek and affectionate temperament does not appear
to have resented this--at all events openly. When, however, this rival
insisted on making her way to the death-bed of the Empress, it was felt
by the attendants that all bounds had been passed. On their own
responsibility they prevented the proposed entrance, and after the death
of the Empress suffered for their pains at the instigation of the
slighted favourite.
Towards the end of 1826 Colonel Cotter, an Irish officer in the
Brazilian Service, undertook to bring over a number of his countrymen
from their native land in order that they should become soldier
settlers--that is to say, they were promised fifty acres of land a head
if they would undertake to perform military service when needed. The
result was a fiasco. The unfortunate Irishmen came out, but found
nothing prepared for them. They were insulted, moreover, by the negroes,
who took to calling them "white slaves" as a mark of contempt for the
ragged clothes to which they found themselves reduced in the end.
Goaded beyond endurance, not only by neglect, but by periodical assaults
on their numbers, the Irish, together with a number of Germans and other
soldiers who found themselves in a similar situation, broke out into
open mutiny, and a pitched battle took place between them and the
blacks, who had now been armed by the authorities. In the end the
Brazilians intervened, assisted by the French and the English Marines,
who were landed from the fleets of their respective nations, and the
mutiny was suppressed, but not before many foreigners quite unconcerned
with the affair had been slain. After this the Irish returned to their
native land.
The proclamation of the Constitution marked the zenith of Dom Pedro's
popularity. The dangers he had gone through and the arbitrary measures
he had been compelled to adopt seem to have altered his views to an
extent which in the end alienated from him the sympathies of his people.
He never again trusted the Brazilians, while the success of his
arbitrary policy in connection with the Andradas, and in the troubled
times which followed, gave him a taste for absolute rule. In the
formation of the Constitution he saved his country, but ruined himself.
After the last sparks of revolution had been put out, the people looked
for the convocation of the Assembly again, but the Emperor omitted to
bring this about for such a length of time that the nation began to
understand that he no longer viewed its claims in the same light. Soon
his preference for the Portuguese began to attract notice, and the
treaty with Portugal, into which he entered before the Mother Country
recognized the independence of Brazil, caused general indignation by its
extravagant concessions. The treaty was justly resented, for Pedro was
Emperor by successful revolt and conquest, and yet by this treaty he
forewent his just rights, and then bought them again from Portugal--with
Brazilian money.
This error of diplomacy was followed by war against Uruguay, for the
Emperor attacked the revolted province, and declared war against Buenos
Aires for rendering assistance to the Uruguayans. The campaign was
carried on so feebly and expensively that the people regarded it as
folly, and at the same time resented the enlistment, already referred
to, of regiments of German and Irish troops, aliens, who were never
popular.
The people of Brazil were aggravated, in addition to these causes, by
the increasing extravagance of the Emperor, and by the expense which his
establishment entailed, while his policy had reduced the nation to
poverty. There were numerous payments to be made to Portugal in
connection with the senseless treaty into which Pedro had entered; there
was the cost of the war, including the pay of the hired German and Irish
troops; and then there was the personal expenditure of the Emperor to
add to these, while the militia system of the country had developed into
a sort of conscription, an utter grievance in the sight of people who
wanted liberty and peace.
In 1828 Uruguay was declared independent, much to the dissatisfaction of
a great number of Brazilians, who advocated the retention of the Banda
Oriental as a province of Brazil.
[Illustration: PEDRO II., EMPEROR OF BRAZIL.]
On March 10, 1826, Dom. Joao died. As soon as the tidings reached Brazil
the Emperor assumed the title of King of Portugal, in addition to that
of Emperor of Brazil. On May 2, six days later, he abdicated the throne
of Portugal in favour of his daughter, Dona Maria. It was resolved that
Dona Maria should marry her uncle, Dom Miguel, in order that she should
ally herself with a Portuguese of high rank. Nevertheless, a dispute
arose between the adherents of Dom Miguel and those of the Emperor of
Brazil, and a state of civil war obtained in Portugal for a time. Dona
Maria, on her arrival in England on her way to Portugal, was received
with royal honours. But Dom Miguel seized upon the throne and managed to
hold it for a while.
Supported by the Portuguese or Absolutist party, Pedro went his way,
and, even in his latter days of rule, refused to sign Bills for the
development of the Constitution. There was undoubtedly much now to
unsettle the Brazilian populace. Disadvantageous reciprocity treaties
were concluded with various countries, while defeats of the Brazilian
soldiers were experienced at the hands of the troops of the Argentine
Republic. An indemnity was demanded by France and the United States of
America for ships captured during the blockade of Buenos Aires, and
large sums of money had to be paid to avert further war. Finally, the
English Government persuaded Brazil to make a somewhat humiliating peace
with Buenos Aires, and renounce all claim to the colony, which was
henceforth to be known as the Republic of Uruguay.
By 1830 the policy which the Emperor pursued had alienated the national
affection to such an extent that every member of the Assembly but the
Ministers was in opposition. Wherever the Emperor went, he was treated
with coldness instead of enthusiasm. A scheme on the part of the
Republicans for adopting the Constitution of the United States, but
retaining Pedro as hereditary President, caused him to dismiss his
Ministers, and surround himself with men of the Absolutist party. At
this an immense crowd assembled in the Campo de Santa Ana, demanding the
reinstatement of the popular Ministers.
The Emperor sent a magistrate to read a justification of his conduct to
the crowd, but the paper was snatched from the magistrate's hands and
torn to pieces almost before he had finished reading it. In their turn
the people sent messengers to the palace, insisting on the reinstatement
of the Republican Ministers. The Emperor listened to the demand, and
answered: "I will do everything for the people, nothing by the people."
This answer exasperated the crowd still further, yet no excess was
committed. At two o'clock in the morning the last messenger of the
people was departing with the Emperor's refusal to yield to their
demands, when Pedro bade him stay, and, sitting down at his desk, wrote
his last message to the people of Brazil:
"Availing myself of the right which the Constitution concedes to me, I
declare that I have voluntarily abdicated in favour of my dearly beloved
and esteemed son, Dom Pedro de Alcantara."
Having handed this to the messenger, Pedro burst into tears and retired
to his private apartments.
Six days later he sailed from the harbour of Rio in an English
man-of-war, leaving Brazil and his child for good.