Brazil History From Colonialism to the First Constitution of 1824

Brazil History: From Colonialism to the First Constitution of 1824

Pre-Columbian Brazil did not know advanced civilizations, similar to those that flourished in Mexico or Peru; the Portuguese, who landed in 1500 with Cabral, initially neglected the new dominion, so much so that the French, also expanding, were able to establish a fort on the Pernambuco coast. In 1530 the Lusitanian court, determined to take a more active interest in the colony, sent there Martim Afonso de Souza who, after having ousted the French from Pernambuco, reinforced the Portuguese garrisons and began to establish the first administrative services. In 1533, King John III introduced the system of capitanías: it was a territorial extension that the sovereign assigned to a noble (donatário), on the basis of subdivisions carried out along the coastline and ideally extended towards the west until reaching the limits set by the Treaty of Tordesillas with which Portugal and Spain had agreed in 1494 to outline the borders of their respective conquests in America. According to extrareference, Brazil was thus divided into twelve capitanías, which on the coastal stretch were from twenty-five to sixty leagues long and in which the donatários they did not take long to transform into lords, endowed with practically unlimited powers. In 1549 John III to regain control of the situation appointed Tomé de Sousa general governor and elevated the city of Bahia to the capital of the colony; from that moment the consolidation of the Lusitanian presence could proceed more effectively. In 1567 the governor general Mem de Sá rejected an attempted occupation by emigrated Huguenots and, in the place that the invaders had called Antarctic France, founded Rio de Janeiro. The period of Spanish domination over Portugal, from 1580 to 1640, was very important for the Brazilian national formation: abandoned to a large extent to themselves, the colonists had to provide with their own forces to defend themselves from foreign assaults, which in that era multiplied by the English, French and Dutch. The former limited themselves to a few raids, the latter, settled within the area that is part of the Maranhão, were expelled in 1615; the Dutch, having landed in large numbers, had managed to establish themselves in Pernambuco. Their community, especially during the administration of Prince John Maurice of Nassau (1637-44), had settled so solidly that the Portuguese-Brazilians were forced to prolong their war efforts for liberation until 1654. year, after an extreme defense in Recife, the Dutch capitulated. When the representatives of the Portuguese crown returned, the situation in Brazil had therefore substantially changed: the residents of Rio, of São Paulo and the northern areas had acquired a national consciousness with claims that were unwelcome in Lisbon. Expansionist pushes occurred on the part of the São Paulo pioneers who, in more or less numerous groups, ventured west and south in search of new lands and indigenous people to enslave for work on the plantations. The clash between the bandsirantes (as the pioneers were called) and the Jesuits it was inevitable when the first reached the reducciones, that is to say those fortified settlements that the fathers of the Company had erected, especially in the area of ​​present-day Paraguay, to guarantee the indigenous elements a safe life, even if burdened by authoritarian and inflexible religious norms. The clashes were numerous and the bandairantes they got the better of them only when the position of the Jesuits began to weaken both in Portugal and in Spain (in the second half of the 18th century they were expelled). Meanwhile, Brazil, with the help of specially formed companies, entered a phase of commercial development, also benefiting from the administrative reforms introduced by the Prime Minister, Marquis of Pombal, during the reign of Joseph I (1750-77). Central authority was further strengthened to the detriment of the donatários and the colony, which in 1714 had already been elevated to the rank of viceroyalty, had Rio de Janeiro as its capital from 1763. That period of Enlightenment absolutism, which among other things also led to the formal provision of abolition of slavery for the Indians, was however truncated by the reactionary policy of Queen Maria I (1777-1816). Throughout Brazil, there were feelings of hostility towards Lisbon. In this way, coinciding with similar events in other South American countries, the first independence movements took place. In 1789, thus coinciding with the beginning of the French Revolution, some patriots led by Cláudio da Costa and the young officer Joaquím José Xavier da Silva in the province of Minas Gerais (nicknamed Tiradentes from his profession as a dentist) organized a conspiracy to push the people to revolt; when the conspiracy failed, in 1792 Tiradentes was arrested and sentenced to death. The Napoleonic storm precipitated events. In 1808 the entire Portuguese court moved to Rio de Janeiro, which therefore temporarily became the capital of the kingdom. In 1816 John VI, having ascended the throne at the death of Mary, assumed the title of king of the United Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil; during the same year the Spanish territory of the Banda Oriental (today’s Uruguay) was occupied and became the Cisplatina Province of Brazil. In 1821, when John VI, having to return to Lisbon, left his son Dom Pedro in Rioas regent, the situation was interpreted in Portugal as a prelude to the independence of Brazil; Parliament and government therefore ordered Dom Pedro to repatriate several times, while the Brazilians, in turn, persuaded him to hold back and defend his position. A new injunction to return to his homeland was received by Dom Pedro while he was inspecting the troops on the banks of the Ypiranga River, just outside São Paulo; on that occasion he turned to the soldiers and shouted: “Independence or death!”. It was September 7, 1822. The following December 1, in an exultant Rio de Janeiro adorned with the new national colors, green and yellow, the son of John VI was crowned emperor of Brazil and took the name of Peter I and two years then he gave the country its first authoritarian constitution.

Brazil History From Colonialism to the First Constitution of 1824