1
Tropical Liberalism (1840-1930)

Brazilian independence came quickly and easily, especially when compared with most of the Americas. That smooth process served the immediate needs of Brazil's planter class, but postponed to some unknown future date many questions about state making, citizenship, and even the nature of what Brazil was to be as a nation. The two most important factors shaping 1822's independence from Portugal were the arrival of the royal court in 1808 and Brazil's near complete dependence on slavery as its dominant form of labor.

European geopolitics shaped the independence era throughout Latin America. In Brazil, they literally brought about its first iteration. Even before Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain in May 1808, Portugal's Braganza dynasty understood the threat the French Army posed to their reign. In November 1807, they arranged to move most of the royal court to Brazil. Under the protection of the British Navy, the Portuguese monarchs and many of their advisors and hangers-on arrived in South America on January 22, 1808, instantly transforming Brazil from colony to metropole. Dom João VI ruled the Portuguese Empire from Rio de Janeiro from 1808 (although he only formally became king in 1816) until his return to Portugal in 1821 to take control of the volatile political situation there. The Portuguese monarch left his son, Dom Pedro I, in charge of Brazil. Planters sought to push this arrangement even further, and encouraged Pedro to sever ties with Lisbon and make Brazil independent. On January 9, 1822, Pedro complied and declared, "As it is for the good of all and the general happiness of the Nation, I am ready. Tell the People that I will stay. I stay!" After receiving news from Portugal rejecting this move in September 1822, Pedro, while in Ipiranga, São Paulo, declared, "For my blood, my honor, my God, I swear to give Brazil freedom.. Brazilians, Independence or Death!" This declaration of independence is known as the Cry of Ipiringa (Grito de Inpiranga), and September 7 has since been celebrated as Brazilian independence day.

This transition guaranteed the political stability that allowed for ongoing economic growth. And by keeping the monarchy in place and firmly established in Brazil itself, there was little to no chance of a political revolution or other challenge to the status quo. Given that, slavery would remain the dominant form of labor for the foreseeable future. Beyond the maintenance of slavery and support for commodity production and export, Brazilian independence included no clearly articulated program for national development. Planters remained the most powerful actors in Brazil. Even though they had pushed Pedro to declare independence, many of them did not trust the Brazilian emperor, who maintained close ties to his father back in Portugal. The planters' power and the absence of any sort of national political project combined to deepen the regionalism that had defined much of the colonial era.

Creating a Brazilian Empire

Pedro I was the ideal figure to lead Brazilian independence, but he was hardly equipped to craft the new nation's politics. He eventually acquiesced to the idea of governing with a constitution in place, and so an elected assembly began to work on that document starting in May 1823. Assembly members wanted to codify a system of complete free trade, but Pedro continued to have an affinity for Portugal. The monarch was so put off by this and other disagreements that he dissolved the assembly and exiled its leaders in November 1823. He then wrote the constitution himself. Not surprisingly, it concentrated power in his hands despite formally having three separate branches of government. Pedro also appointed the states' governors (known then as "provincial presidents"), further centralizing power in his hands in Rio. All of these moves alienated the powerful planter class.

Brazil was weak economically at this time, and totally dependent on trade with Great Britain and Portugal. Pedro was not unaware of the growing discontent among planters, so in 1831 he appointed a new cabinet that was completely made up of Brazilian-born men. He did so to mollify the planters he had been alienating for nine years, but the new cabinet only highlighted the distant and personalistic nature of Pedro's nine years as emperor. With no improvement in sight, he abdicated and returned to Portugal soon after the new cabinet was seated. He left behind his five-year-old son, Pedro II, who would become Brazil's emperor when he reached the age of majority on his eighteenth birthday. Until Pedro II could rule, Brazil operated under a system known as the Regency. A three-man panel governed the country in the young monarch's name. They were also responsible for training Pedro II to become the nation's leader. Unlike his father, who had been born and initially educated in Portugal, the younger Pedro would be a completely Brazilian leader by the time his eighteenth birthday arrived.

During the Regency (1831-40), Brazilian planters finally had direct control of the national government. And although the Regency was the national government, the planters who ran it were primarily interested in maintaining their power, which meant local control at Rio's expense. They also had little interest in altering the nation's reliance on slavery. Politically, they embraced a regionalism that privileged planters throughout the nation over the central state in Rio. That diffusion of power undermined any sense of Brazil as a coherent nation, and bred broad discontent with the status quo, especially in regions far from the capital. Between 1832 and 1838, there were five major rebellions in these areas. They were often made up of multiracial coalitions of people who rejected the established order, and wanted to be even more independent from Rio. Some rebellions sought relief from the power of the local planters, while others pushed to separate completely from Brazil. Although none succeeded, collectively they created a crisis for the men running Regency, who reacted with a bold and in some ways absurd move: they declared that the 14-year-old Pedro II was, for the purposes of governing Brazil, legally 18.

On July 23, 1840, Brazil's political leaders declared that Pedro II had reached the age of majority four years early. His ascendance calmed the political situation, finally completed the process of making the government fully Brazilian, and began a truly national period of governance that would challenge, to some degree, the Regency's extreme federalism. Pedro II ruled using the 1824 constitution, and took on the role as the moderating power between rival Liberal and Conservative political factions. Once again, Brazil experienced a major political transformation peacefully and without popular mobilization behind an agenda for the political and/or economic development of the nation. This precluded the creation of a political system capable of responding to the needs and aspirations of the majority of the nation's people. But even at only 14 years of age, Pedro II was much more prepared than his father or the leaders of the Regency to rule Brazil. And although he had no discernible program, he would prove to be the ideal leader for Brazil as its economy began to flourish when it became the world's greatest producer and exporter of coffee.

From the time Pedro II became emperor until the advent of the Great Depression in 1930, the Brazilian economy grew steadily through the export of coffee, rubber, and other commodities. The macro-level political peace during Pedro II's reign (1840-89) and the Old Republic (1889-1930) that followed it greatly facilitated the ongoing growth of the export economy. That stability began at the top. Pedro's biographers often described him as "calm," "deliberate," and "serious." He projected that personality in portraits and official photographs by appearing in austere-looking black suits. In an era before mass communications, Pedro set out to be a calming and dominant symbol of the Brazilian nation. As a ruler, he was strict, but not an absolutist, because he had been taught by his tutors during the Regency the importance of balancing the nation's various regional interests. When he assumed the throne as a 14 year old, he relied heavily on advisors, but his education and training prepared him so well that he took charge by the time he was in his early twenties.

The plantation remained the primary organizing unit for both the economy and the political system. Formal politics operated with Pedro as the ultimate moderating authority over the elected National Assembly, which was made up of wealthy adult males primarily tied to the agricultural economy. Pedro also worked with an appointed cabinet known as the Council of State, which had no formal power, but that allowed the monarch to balance regional and other interests. As in most Latin American nations in the nineteenth century, Brazilian politics were dominated by members of the Liberal and Conservative parties. Unlike in Mexico, where that division eventually led to a civil war and French occupation, Brazilian Liberals and Conservatives were not far apart politically. The parties were defined more by their geographical bases. Landowners from areas in decline, such as Bahia in the Northeast, tended to be Conservatives, while those from more economically dynamic areas (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul) were Liberals....