Brazilian Declaration of Independence
When the Portuguese court fled Portugal in 1808 to avoid the Napoleonic wars, they made Brazil the seat of the massive Portuguese Empire. However, in 1820, the Liberal Revolution erupted in Porto, which led the Royal family to return to safety in Portugal in 1821. Only a portion of Brazilian delegates were left behind to represent the government.
The government voted to abolish the Kingdom of Brazil and the royal agencies in Rio de Janiero in order to make all the provinces subordinate directly to Lisbon. So Portugal sent troops to Brazil and placed all of the units under Portuguese command. However in January of 1822, the tensions between the Portuguese troops and the Brazilian-born citizens of Portugal turned violent. The atmosphere was charged and when reinforcements landed in Rio de Janeiro on March 5, 1822, they were not allowed to land and were instead sent back to Portugal, leaving the first round won without bloodshed.
On September 7, 1822, Pedro faced the difficult choice of returning to Portugal in disgrace or opting for independence. In a famous scene on the shore of the Ipiranga river, he tore the Portuguese insignia from his uniform and swore, “By my blood, by my honor, and by God: I will make Brazil free.” He proclaimed that their motto would be independence or death.
This newly independent government depended somewhat on foreign mercenaries like Admiral Thomas Alexander Cochrane who was one of Britain’s most successful naval commanders in the Napoleonic Wars. Pedro also hired some of the British officers who had fought under Admiral Chochrane’s command and the French General Pierre Labatut. These men helped Pedro to drive the Portuguese out of Bahia, Maranhao and Para. By mid-1823, the battle consisted of around eighteen thousand Portuguese fighting twenty nine thousand Brazilians.
Both Britain and Portugal recognized Brazilian independence when they signed a treaty on August 29, 1825. Until that point the Brazilians had been afraid that the Portuguese would resume their attack. The true Portuguese revenge, however, came economically. The treaty signed required that Brazil assume the payment of nearly one and a half million pounds sterling that were owed to Britain and to pay Portugal for losses totaling around six hundred thousand pounds sterling. Brazil renounced their annexation of Portuguese African colonies and signed a treaty with Britain that promised to end the slave trade, which greatly displeased Brazilian slave holders, and slavery in Brazil continued for several decades after independence was declared.
For some time, Brazil continued to use the sugar crops originally planted by the Portuguese as financial support. However, as the government evolved, the main export would eventually shift to gold.
After their declaration of independence, Brazil established itself as the Empire of Brazil. This lasted several decades until a military coup overthrew the empire and established a democratic republic. From that day until the present, Brazil has alternated between short periods of dictatorship, and longer periods of democratically elected presidents, with government gaining stability in more recent years.