The Unlikely Protagonist - The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha - page 15

Da Cunha's world began in the twilight of the Bragança imperial monarchy, an empire
bucklingunderinternalstressesandthedistractedindifferenceofEmperorPedroII,who
had come to power at the age of fifteen. 4 His grandfather, Dom João VI, a royal fugit-
ive,hadabandonedPortugalafterNapoleoninvadedtheIberianPeninsulain1807.Dom
João packed up his entire court and loaded them on thirty-three galleons to ultimately
disembarkintheirsweatysilksanddroopingsatinsonthemuddyquaysofRio,blinking
in the glare of the tropical light, gawped at by the locals. Though the place looked like
a tropical paradise and was vast, rich, and sensual, it was inhabited, to the monarch's
mind, by barbarian races, intractable slaves, an indolent elite, and ambitious upstarts.
Thirteen years later, he impulsively abandoned the throne to his child king, Dom Pedro
I. It seemed a small matter to pack up the court favorites, the jewels, and a few memen-
tos and sail back home, leaving as his legacies the beautiful Jardim Botânico in Rio, an
ambiguous constitution, and a Brazilian native son to incarnate his regime. 5
Pedro's reign was characterized by rebellion and political dissensions at almost every
turn, torn between monarchic ideologies and revolutionary thought emanating from
Europe, and within the government, between federalist impulses that seemed only to in-
flame successional movements and centralizing pressures that provoked powerful anti-
monarchic sentiments. These, along with an inability to control the apparatus of gov-
ernment the realm's oligarchs, and the difficulty of consolidating national territory, all
underminedPedro'srule.HewassenttoexileinPortugalin1831.Likehisfather,Pedro
I left ruling offspring, but until Pedro II took power in 1840, the state was managed by a
set of highly unpopular regents. 6
The regents enacted harsh centralizing laws and established the institutions and
powers of an absolutist state to combat a nation rife with insurgency, as regional elites
resisted imperial demands and as the constant slave insurrections roiled through its
shantytowns and hinterlands. This legislation remained intact for almost fifty years, un-
til the military coup of 1889 finally overthrew the monarchy. 7 The laws had four main
goals: to restore and maintain the order and power of the emperor's favorites, the North-
easternoligarchsandthosewithspecialcourtlicenses;toupholdanexport-ledsystemof
production,basedonslavery,withscantattentiontothemassesofitsurbanorruralpop-
ulation; 8 toenfeebleliberalandfederalistmovements,inspiredbytheFrenchandAmer-
ican Revolutions, that tended to favor regional oligarchs at the expense of the Crown's
favorites;andfinally,toprotectlocaleconomiesbyopposingfreetradeandmarketideo-
logies flowing out of Britain and the United States. The monarchist policies were in-
flexible, mediated by an old guard that controlled a vast and corrupt system of patron-
ageevenasthesepoliciesbecameflashpointsofpoliticaldissentandeconomicstrangle-
hold. 9
Patronage and Its Problems