BRAZILIAN POLITICS AND ECONOMY 261
the northern planters, who saw in it a guarantee
of slavery’s survival. Before 1888 the Republican
Party had its principal base among the coffee inter-
ests, who resented the favor shown by the imperial
government to the sugar planters and wished to
achieve political power that corresponded to their
economic clout. Now, angered by abolition and
embittered by the failure of the crown to indemnify
them for their lost slaves, those planters who had
opposed abolition joined the Republican move-
ment. The monarchy that had served the interest
of regional elites for the previous sixty-seven years
had lost its reason for existence.
Republicanism and a closely allied ideology,
positivism, also made many converts in the of-
fi cer class, who were disgruntled by the imperial
government’s neglect and mistreatment. Many of
the younger offi cers belonged to the new urban
middle class or were of aristocratic descent but dis-
agreed with the ways of their fathers. Positivism, it
has been said, became “the gospel of the military
academy,” where it was brilliantly expounded by
a popular young professor of mathematics, Ben-
jamin Constant Botelho de Magalhães, a devoted
disciple of Auguste Comte, the doctrine’s founder.
The positivist doctrine, with its stress on science, its
ideal of a dictatorial republic, and its distrust of the
masses, fi t the needs of urban middle-class groups,
progressive offi cers, and businessmen-fazendeiros,
who wanted modernization but without drastic
changes in land tenure and class relations. On No-
vember 15, 1889, a military revolt led by BenjaminAllegory of the Departure of Dom Pedro II for Europe After the Declaration of the
Republic. This romantic painting suggests the respect and aff ection many Brazilians,
including supporters of the republic, felt for the ousted emperor. [Anonymous, 1890, oil on
canvas. Fundaçao Maria Luisa e Oscar Americano, São Paolo]