1808: The Flight of the Emperor (23 page)

XXIII

The Republic of Pernambuco

I
n May 1817, a mysterious individual was roaming the streets, battered by the brisk spring winds of Philadelphia. Antonio Gonçalves Cruz—a merchant known as Cabugá and the secret agent of a conspiracy brewing in the province of Pernambuco in Northeast Brazil—carried $800,000 in his luggage, a staggering amount now and even more so then. In today's currency, that would have amounted to $12 million.
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Cabugá arrived in America with three missions. He was to purchase arms to fight King João VI's troops; he was to convince the American government to support the creation of an independent republic in the Northeast of Brazil; and, third and most spectacular of his objectives, he was to recruit old French revolutionaries exiled in America so that with their help he could liberate Napoleon Bonaparte, imprisoned by the English on Saint Helena in the South Atlantic after his defeat in the Battle of Waterloo. According to Cabugá's plan, Napoleon would travel from the island in the still of the night to Recife, capital of Pernambuco, where he would command the Pernambucan revolution, after which he would return to Paris and reassume the throne as emperor of France.
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Cruz Cabugá today names one of the main thoroughfares running through the neighborhood of Santo Amaro in Recife. Every day, thousands drive along it in a rush, on their way to the city of Olinda or downtown Recife, most with
no idea about the source of the road's name. In 1817, Cabugá had spectacular plans, but they were doomed to failure before he even began implementing them. By the time he arrived in America with funds collected from the masters of sugarcane plantations, cotton producers, and merchants favorable to a republic, troops loyal to the Portuguese crown had already besieged the Pernambucan rebels. Surrender was inevitable. Unaware of this turn of events, however, Cabugá successfully recruited four veterans of Bonaparte's armies: Count Pontelécoulant, Colonel Latapie, an orderly named Artong, and a soldier named Roulet. They arrived in Brazil long after the suppression of the uprising, and all were arrested even before disembarking.
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Even in defeat, the Pernambucan revolt bore a high cost for the plans of the Portuguese court in Brazil. While the rebels held onto power for less than three months, they struck a blow to the confidence behind João's dream of building an American empire. They also accelerated the process of Brazilian independence. “Although the crisis of 1817 produced no immediate visible consequences in Brazil or Portugal, it had in reality shaken the existing system to its foundations,” writes historian Roderick Barman.
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“The structure of authority had collapsed under assault, and the elements in society most identified with the Crown had actively collaborated with the rebel regime.” For this reason, according to Barman, the crown never again felt sure that its subjects could resist contamination by the ideas responsible for the subversion of the old order in Europe. Brazilian historian Manuel de Oliveira Lima considered the 1817 rebellion as “the first genuinely republican movement in Brazil” and also “the most spontaneous, the least disorganized, and the most congenial of our numerous revolutions.”
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At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Olinda and Recife, the two largest cities in Pernambuco, together had 40,000 inhabitants. This was a large population, considering that Rio de Janeiro, capital of the colony, had 60,000. Recife, which had one of the busiest ports in Brazil, directed the outward flow of sugar from the hundreds of cane mills of the Zona da Mata, a humid strip on the Northeastern coast running from Bahia up to Rio Grande do Norte. After sugar, the second most exported product was cotton.

Aside from their political and economic importance, the Pernambucans earned a measure of fame for their freedom struggles. First and most
importantly, they expelled the Dutch in 1654. Half a century later, during the Mascate War, a conflict between rival traders, the possibility of proclaiming the independence of Olinda arose.
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“Pernambuco was the captaincy where the most pronounced and deep-rooted rivalries lay between colonists born in Brazil and colonists born in Portugal,” wrote historian Francisco Adolfo Varnhagen.
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While rebellion broke into the open in Pernambuco, it reflected the discontent of all of the provinces with the rise in taxes to finance the expenses of the Portuguese court in Rio. A sentiment of dissatisfaction hung in the air, especially in the provinces of the North and Northeast affected by the fiscal voracity of King João VI. “A tax is paid at Pernambuco for lighting the streets of the Rio de Janeiro, whilst those of Recife remain in total darkness,” wrote Englishman Henry Koster, who lived in Recife at the time of the rebellion. Koster also counted the salaries of many public servants as too low, barely sustaining their families. “Consequently, peculation, bribery, and other crimes of the same description . . . become so frequent as to escape all punishment or even notice.”
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“The people of Recife, and its immediate neighborhood, had imbibed some of the notions of democratical government from their former masters, the Dutch,” wrote Maria Graham, another foreign visitor, who visited Pernambuco in 1821.

 

They remembered, besides, that their own exertions, without any assistance from the government, had driven out those masters, and had restored to the crown the northern part of its richest domain. They were, therefore, disposed to be particularly jealous of the provinces of the south, especially of Rio, which they considered as more favored than themselves, and they were disgusted at the payments of taxes and contributions, by which they never profited, and which only served to enrich the creatures of the court, while great abuses existed.
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Aside from the rise in taxes, Pernambuco in particular had a difficult time with the conjunction of three other factors that profoundly affected its economy. First, sugar production increased dramatically worldwide during
the eighteenth century. This spike in supply caused a global fall in the price of Pernambuco's principal export. At the same time, the growing pressure of abolitionists in Europe created gradual restrictions on slave traffic, making the cost of labor increasingly more expensive. Slavery fueled the engine of the entire Pernambucan agricultural economy at this time. Last, contributing greatly to aggravating the situation, a devastating drought hit the northeastern backlands in 1816.
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The economic crisis and the discontent with the Portuguese administration provided fertile ground for liberal French and American ideas. A prosperous merchant and avid reader of works of French philosophy, Cruz Cabugá became an activist for liberal and republican ideals. Sent to America in the earliest days of the Pernambuco revolt, he returned practically empty-handed. He did meet with Secretary of State Richard Rush, from whom he solicited the dispatch of troops and arms for the revolution.
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He managed only to secure a commitment that the United States would authorize the entry of Pernambucan ships in American waters during the rebellion, even against the will of King João VI. They also agreed to give asylum or shelter to refugees in case the movement failed.

The first great republic of the modern age, America at this time still wanted to sign commercial agreements with Portugal and Britain, the latter newly its ally after the War of 1812. As a result, Americans didn't want to involve themselves with the republican cause in Brazil so as not to displease either crown. America repeated this same behavior seven years later, refusing to help the rebels in the Confederation of the Equator, a movement led by a Carmelite friar known as Brother Mug.
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“We are not in search of proselytes to republicanism,” observed Henry Brackenridge—rather ironically considering future history—who between 1817 and 1818 served in Brazil as a special envoy of the American government. “It is enough for us to know that our own institutions are the best.”
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The rebels occupied Recife on March 6, 1817. In the artillery regiment situated in the neighborhood of Santo Antonio, one of the leaders of the conspiracy, Captain José de Barros Lima, known as the Crowned Lion, resisted arrest and killed Commander Barbosa de Castro with a sword. Thereafter, in the company of other rebel soldiers, he took over the barracks
and dug trenches around it to impede the advance of any troops loyal to the monarchy. The governor, Caetano Pinto de Miranda Montenegro—a weak figure disinclined to work—took refuge in the Brum Fort at the port. Once surrounded, he surrendered.
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With the imprisonment of de Miranda Montenegro, the rebels established a provisional government, seized the treasury, and proclaimed a republic. After three weeks, on March 29, they announced the convocation of a constituent assembly, formed by elected representatives from every district of the province. A new “organic law” established the separation between executive, legislative, and judicial powers. Catholicism continued as the official religion, but the new republic would tolerate other Christian denominations. Finally, they proclaimed freedom of the press, a great novelty in Brazil, where ideas, the publication of books, and the right to free opinion hadn't circulated freely for three centuries. Slavery also continued so as not to affect the interests of the masters of the sugarcane mills who supported the movement. The republic abolished duties on commerce and raised soldiers' pay. Those who had participated in the rebellion received lightning promotions. Domingos Teotonio, one of the chiefs of the new junta, promoted himself from captain to colonel.
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They designed a new flag that, on its upper half, had a rainbow with a star above it and the sun below it, representing the union of all Pernambucans. In the lower half, a red cross on a white background symbolized faith in justice and understanding. Although the revolution failed, Governor Manoel Pereira Borba officially adopted it as the flag of the state in 1917.

Aside from these republican measures, the revolutionary council made a few other equally colorful decisions. They abolished all pronouns indicating hierarchy or authority of one person over another, such as the commonly used “your excellence” or “your lordship,” the word “patriot” replacing “lord.”
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Historian Tobias Monteiro recounts that the chief rebel Domingos José Martins and his wife invited Pernambucan women to cut their hair, considered a “vain ornament,” as a symbol of adhesion to the republic. As a result, any women with long hair in Recife or Olinda fell under suspicion.
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Measures like these revealed the lingering influence of the French Revolution, under the impetus of which, aside from adopting a new system of
weights and measures, the names of the months changed under the short-lived French Republican Calendar.

The new republican government remained in power until May 20. During this period, all attempts to obtain support from neighboring provinces failed. In Bahia, the envoy of the revolution, José Inacio Ribeiro de Abreu e Lima, known as Padre Roma, was arrested upon disembarking his ship and immediately shot by order of the governor, the count of Arcos. In Rio Grande do Norte, the movement gained the support of André de Albuquerque Maranhão, proprietor of a large sugarcane mill. After arresting the governor, José Inacio Borges, and sending him by escort to Recife, de Albuquerque Maranhão occupied the village of Natal and formed a junta government, though it stirred absolutely no public interest. He fell from power in a few days.

In England, the revolutionaries tried to obtain the support of the journalist Hipólito José da Costa, founder of the
Correio Braziliense,
offering him the role of minister plenipotentiary of the new republic. Da Costa refused.
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As we have seen, the Portuguese court had signed an agreement with the owner of the
Correio
in 1812, unbeknownst to the Pernambucans, that provided for the purchase of a specified number of copies of the newspaper and a stipend for da Costa himself in exchange for moderation in criticism of the monarchy. In an official dispatch from London, the Portuguese ambassador, Domingos de Sousa Coutinho, evaluated the results of this agreement: “I have restrained him here, in part with the promise of the subscription that he requested. I know of no other way to keep him quiet.”
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Historian de Oliveira Lima, evaluating this secret relation, relates da Costa, “if not downright venal, was certainly not incorruptible, as he began to moderate the barbs of his discourse in exchange for distinctions, considerations, and official sponsorship.”
20

The Portuguese reaction to the rebellion came down fast and hard. From Bahia, troops sent by the count of Arcos advanced through the Pernambucan backlands, while a naval force dispatched from Rio de Janeiro blocked the port of Recife. In a few days, a total of eight thousand men surrounded the rebel province. In the backlands, the decisive battle took place in the region of Ipojuca, today the municipality that hosts the famous Porto de Galinhas
beach resort. Defeated, the revolutionaries retreated toward Recife, Brother Mug, future leader of the Confederation of the Equator, among them.

On May 19, two months after the start of the rebellion, Portuguese troops entered Recife. They found the city abandoned and defenseless. The isolated provisional government surrendered the next day. The repression, as always, was ruthless. The sentence against the rebels ordered that “after killing them . . . their hands shall be cut off, their heads decapitated and staked atop posts . . . and the rest of their cadavers tied to horses and dragged to the cemetery.”
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As an additional punishment, the captaincy of Pernambuco lost the district of Alagoas, the rural landowners of which had remained loyal to the crown. As a reward, they became an autonomous province.
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