BRAZIL 221
Brazil as regent for his father, João VI, rejected a
demand that he return to Portugal and issued the
famous Cry of Ipiranga: “Independence or Death!”
DOM PEDRO, EMPEROR
Dom Pedro acted with the advice and support of
the Brazilian aristocracy, which was determined
to preserve the autonomy Brazil had enjoyed since
- It was equally determined to make a tran-
sition to independence without the violence that
marked the Spanish American movement of lib-
eration elsewhere. 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 ineffi cient agricul-
tural system, a highly stratifi ed society, and a free
population that was 90 percent illiterate.
Dom Pedro had promised to give his subjects a
constitution, but the constituent assembly he sum-
moned in 1823 drafted a document that placed
excessive limits on his power. In response, he dis-
solved the assembly and assigned a handpicked
commission the task of making a new constitu-
tion, which he promulgated by imperial procla-
mation. This constitution, under which Brazil was
governed until the fall of the monarchy in 1889,
concentrated great power in the hands of the mon-
arch. In addition to a Council of State, it provided
for a two-chamber parliament: a lifetime Senate,
the members of which were chosen by the em-
peror, and a Chamber of Deputies who were elected
by only voters who met certain property and in-
come requirements that effectively disenfranchised
the great majority. The emperor had the right to
appoint and dismiss ministers and summon or
dissolve parliament at will. He also appointed the
provincial governors or presidents.
Resentment over Dom Pedro’s high-handed
dissolution of the constituent assembly and the
highly centralist character of the constitution of
1824 was particularly strong in Pernambuco, a
center of republican and federalist ferment. Here
in 1824, a group of rebels, led by the merchant
Manoel de Carvalho, proclaimed the creation of a
Confederation of the Equator that would unite the
six northern provinces under a republican govern-
ment. A few leaders voiced antislavery sentiments,
but they did nothing to abolish slavery, partly be-
cause they feared that this would mobilize slaves
and free people of color to produce a revolutionary
outcome modeled on the Haitian experience. This
deprived the movement of the potential support of
a large slave population, and within a year impe-
rial troops had smashed the revolt.
Dom Pedro had won a victory, but resentment
of his autocratic tendencies continued to smolder,
and his popularity steadily waned. Once again,
the issue of slavery loomed large. The emperor’s
foreign policies contributed to this growing discon-
tent. In 1826, in return for recognition of Brazilian
independence and a trade agreement, Dom Pedro
signed a treaty with Great Britain that obligated
Brazil to end the slave traffi c by 1830. Despite this
ban and the British Navy’s efforts to seize the slave
ships, the trade continued with the full knowledge
and approval of the Brazilian government. But
British policing practices caused the price of slaves
to rise sharply. The prospering coffee growers of
Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Minas Gerais could
afford to pay high prices for slaves, but the cotton
and sugar growers of the depressed north could not
compete with them for workers and blamed Dom
Pedro for their diffi culties.
News of the July Revolution of 1830 in France,
a revolution that toppled an unpopular, autocratic
king, produced rejoicing and violent demonstra-
tions in Brazilian cities. Exaltados (radical liberals)
placed themselves at the head of the revolt and
called for the abolition of the monarchy and the
establishment of a federal republic. In the coun-
tryside, slaves and free people of color seized the
opportunity to demand the abolition of slavery,
which had long functioned as the bedrock of a frag-
ile elite provincial unity. In the face of the growing
crisis, Dom Pedro abdicated in favor of his fi ve-
year-old son Pedro, and two weeks later he sailed
for Portugal, never to return. These developments,
eliminating the dominant infl uence of Portuguese
merchants and Portuguese-born courtiers under