Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Dom Pedro I, and continued with the
Cabanagem
in Pará, where a mass revolt of the
dispossessed began in 1835. The rebels destroyed most of Belém, killing the governor of
Pará and many of the town's elite; the uprising spread through the Amazon like wildfire
and took five years to put down. Elsewhere the
Sabinada
in Bahia (1837-38) saw a
brutal struggle for Salvador, while the
War of the Farrapos
(1836-45) in Rio Grande
do Sul was essentially a
gaúcho
revolt, aided by Italian fighter
Giuseppe Garibaldi
-
unusually, it was ended by peace treaty and the rebels given general amnesty. The
Balaiada
began in Maranhão in 1838, where the rebels took Caxias, the second city of
the state, and held out against the army until 1840. The last of the provincial rebellions
was the
Praieira
of 1848, also in Pernambuco - it dragged on for two years.
Dom Pedro II
The crisis led to
Dom Pedro II
being declared emperor four years early, in 1840, when
he was only fourteen. He was a sensible, scholarly man, completely unlike his father.
His instincts were conservative, but he also had a modernizing streak and was respected
even by republicans. With government authority restored, the provincial rebellions had
by 1850 either blown themselves out or been put down. With
coffee
beginning to be
planted on a large scale in Rio, São Paulo and Minas, and the flow of European
immigrants rising from a trickle to a flood, the economy of southern Brazil began
to take off in earnest.
The War of the Triple Alliance (1864-70)
With the rebellions in Brazil's provinces, the
army
became increasingly important in
Brazilian political life. Pedro insisted it stay out of domestic politics, but his policy of
diverting the generals by allowing adventures abroad ultimately led to the disaster of
the war with Paraguay; although Brazil emerged victorious, it was at dreadful cost.
he
War of the Triple Alliance
is one of history's forgotten conflicts, but it was the
bloodiest war in South American history, with a casualty list almost as long as that
of the American Civil War: Brazil alone suffered over 100,000 casualties. It pitted in
unequal struggle the landlocked republic of Paraguay, under the dictator
Francisco
Solano López
(1827-70), against the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina and
Uruguay. López started the war by invading Mato Grosso in 1864 (historians still
disagree about his motives, though in part it was a reaction to Brazilian interference in
Uruguay, to the south). The Brazilian army and navy were confident of victory as the
Paraguayans were heavily outnumbered and outgunned. Yet under the able leadership
of López the Paraguayan army proved disciplined and brave, always defeated by
numbers but terribly mauling the opposition. It turned into a war of extermination
and six bloody years were only ended when López was killed in 1870; by this time the
population of Paraguay was reduced (by disease and starvation as well as war) by some
60 percent - estimates suggest anywhere from 500,000 to 1.2 million people died.
Brazil ended the war even deeper in debt to Britain.
The end of slavery
From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century around four million Africans were
transported to Brazil as
slaves
- many times more than were shipped to the United
1825-28
1830
1831
1840-1930
Cisplatine War: Uruguay
gains independence
from Brazil
Slave trade to Brazil
made illegal; law weakly
enforced until 1850
Dom Pedro II becomes
emperor after his
father abdicates
Coffee production
booms in Brazil
