BECK index

Brazil, Argentina & Chile 1817-44

by Sanderson Beck

Brazil’s Revolution 1817-22
Brazil’s Independence 1823-44
Argentine Revolution 1817-44
Paraguay 1817-44
Chilean Revolution 1817-44

Brazil’s Revolution 1817-22

Brazil under Portugal 1744-88
Brazil’s Rise to Power 1788-1817

      The United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves had been proclaimed in 1815, and after the death of Queen Maria in March 1816 Regent João became King João VI. In January 1817 his son Pedro was named Prince Royal, and General Carlos Frederico Lecor led Portuguese troops that occupied Montevideo. João, Pedro, and the Portuguese royal family had been living in Rio de Janeiro since 1808.
      On 6 March 1817 in Pernambuco a revolt broke out that was called the “priests’ revolution” because they took a leading role along with the military, landowners, judges, artisans, and merchants. The revolt began in Recife and spread to the backlands of Alagoas, Paraiba, and Rio Grande do Norte in northeast Brazil. The rebels captured Governor Caetano Pinto and sent him to Rio de Janeiro where he was arrested for having capitulated to the rebels. They declared Pernambuco a republic and on March 9 set up a provisional government in Recife of five men representing the military, the judiciary, agriculture, religion, and commerce. Many of the revolutionary leaders had studied in the seminary of Bishop Azeredo Coutinho.
      King João VI sent to Lisbon for Peninsular volunteers, and regular soldiers were recalled from Minas Gerais and São Paulo. He ordered the Bank of Brazil to lend his government one million cruzados (£60,000). On April 16 Admiral Rodrigo Lobo demanded that the junta in Recife surrender or be shot. Militia-Captain Silva Pedroso for the revolution had deserters found in the jails shot in public executions. Many people fled the city while the hungry poor looted shops. On May 11 Portuguese merchants joined together and offered the junta 500,000 francs to depart. The cotton factor José Domingos Martins met with the loyalist militia on the 17th and was captured. Indians who had been colonized arrived on May 22 and helped pacify this rebellion. Most of the Indians in the coastal and Amazon regions spoke the Tupi lingua geral, but the literate Portuguese speakers did not know this language. On May 26 General Gomes Freire de Andrade was convicted of lese-majesty and was hanged with eleven others without any appeal to the King. The new governor Luiz do Rego arrived in Recife on June 29.
      On 3 March 1818 João VI banned all Masonic societies in both Brazil and Portugal, and in April magistrates and merchants in the city of Porto began the secret Sanhedrin to regenerate Portugal. João put a tax on the importation of slaves and decreed that half the revenue must be spent on European colonization. In 1818 Brazil had about 1,040,000 Europeans, 1,930,000 slaves, 585,000 freedmen, and 250,000 Indians for a total of 3,805,000 people living mostly in the northern provinces of Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, and Paraiba. Brazil’s first pig-iron mill began operating in Ipanema. Portuguese ships going to Rio de Janeiro decreased from 810 in 1810 to 57 in 1820. In 1818 Swiss and Germans began receiving land grants in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro became the largest city with 113,000 residents by 1819.
      After the French left in 1814, Portugal was governed by a regency council headed by the British Field Marshal William Carr Beresford until 1820 when a revolution replaced the regency with the Cortes that had not met for a century. Portugal had 100 deputies to 69 for Brazil. They drew up a constitution but retained the monarchy and demanded that the King return to Portugal. Beresford came to Rio in May and tried to persuade João VI to go back to Portugal. They set up juntas in the captaincies of Brazil which were to be called provinces. João and his son Pedro refused to leave; but Edward Thornton, the British minister to Rio de Janeiro, persuaded João to send Beresford to Lisbon, and he left on August 13. The revolution in Portugal began on the 24th at Oporto and spread. When Beresford arrived in Portugal on October 10, the revolutionary junta refused to let him land. He and other British officers were expelled from the Portuguese army, and the junta planned elections to a Cortes in December. João learned of the revolution on October 17.
      Portuguese troops rebelled in Belém on the first day of 1821 and set up a liberal junta for Para which was joined by Maranhão on April 3 and Piaui on May 24. On February 10 liberal troops in Salvador had begun a conspiracy that removed the Governor of Bahia, the Conde de Palma, and they established a provisional junta that favored a liberal constitution. Radicals in the Masonic lodges advocated independence. Antonio Carlos de Andrade had participated in the Pernambucan revolt of 1817 and was imprisoned in Bahia where he taught fellow inmates law and politics until the uprising freed him in February 1821. He went back to São Paulo and helped his brothers establish a Paulist junta.
      A majority of the Cortes met at Lisbon in January 1821. With only 46 of the 72 Brazilian deputies present and all the other 109 seats filled they voted to reduce Brazil once more to a colony. They abolished all crown agencies and courts of law created in Brazil after 1807, and its provinces were subordinated to Lisbon. They cancelled João VI’s reforms and ordered his son Dom Pedro to return to Portugal. On February 24-26 Portuguese troops gathered in Rio de Janeiro and forced a reorganization of the ministry. João published a decree to convoke a Cortes in Rio, and he promised to accept a constitution to be drafted by the Cortes. João finally agreed to return to Portugal, and on March 7 his royal decree appointed Prince Pedro regent for the provisional government of Brazil with instructions to elect Brazilian deputies to the Portuguese Cortes. The new government ended the prior censorship of manuscripts before printing. The Brazilians elected many radicals who had been born in Brazil and favored independence. On April 21 the first 160 representatives elected by the parishes of Rio de Janeiro met in the new Exchange. The seven deputies from Pernambuco were the first to arrive in Lisbon on August 29, but most of the Brazilian deputies did not arrive until the spring of 1822. Cipriano Barata of Bahia, Muniz Tavares of Pernambuco, and Antonio Carlos Ribeiro de Andrada of São Paulo had participated in the 1817 revolution.
      On 22 April 1821 João VI confirmed his son Dom Pedro as regent, and four days later he sailed for Lisbon with 4,000 Portuguese. Pedro lived with his mistress Domitila de Castro who bore him five children.
      The Banda Oriental was a border region between Brazil and the Rio de la Plata which it had joined as the Oriental Province in 1813. Brazilians invaded in August 1816 and took over Montevideo on 20 January 1817. Two days later at Tacuarembó they defeated those fighting for independence, and the Portuguese annexed the territory. By June 1821 all of the Banda Oriental (now Uruguay) had been incorporated into Brazil as the Cisplantine province, and on July 18 an assembly of eastern notables acclaimed this.
      The Cortes restored important government offices in Lisbon, and they sent more troops to Rio de Janeiro and Pernambuco. General Jorge de Avilez took power in June in Rio de Janeiro. Cortes deputies were chosen by July, and the remaining royal governors shared power or were replaced by juntas in most of Brazil’s provinces. Representatives of four Uruguayan cities met in Montevideo with Portuguese General Carlos Federico Lecor and voted to be annexed by the kingdom of Brazil; but the Portuguese Cortes annulled this, and in September the Portuguese loyalists forced Lecor and his supporters to flee to the town Canelones. For more than a year 8,000 troops on both sides of independence struggled in Montevideo.
      On August 28 Prince Regent Pedro decreed freedom of the press based on the constitution. On September 1 the Cortes in Portugal annulled the appointment of Dom Pedro as regent, and on the 30th they subordinated the provincial governments in Brazil to Portugal by ordering the provinces to replace their governors with elected juntas under the Cortes. On October 18 they required the Prince Regent to return to Lisbon. In November the Portuguese garrison at Recife was forced to embark, and three months later an expedition to relieve General Avilez was prevented from landing troops in Pernambuco.
      On December 9 Dom Pedro received the decree ordering him to leave Brazil, and two days later his agreement was published. Brazilian radicals, liberals, and conservatives joined together in support of Pedro, and by the end of the year governing juntas were installed in three-quarters of the provinces. In Rio de Janeiro the newspaper A Malagueta urged the Prince to defy the Cortes and stay in Brazil, and on 1 January 1822 he received a petition from São Paulo written by José Bonifacio and signed by the entire provincial junta arguing that the Portuguese Cortes had violated the constitution and stating that they would sacrifice their possessions and shed their blood to support him staying in Brazil. Pedro published this in Rio de Janeiro’s Gazeta on January 8, and the Rio city council’s president José Clemente Pereira presented their petition with 8,000 signatures on January 9. He asserted that the Prince must remain in Brazil to prevent its separation from Portugal.
      On 9 January 1822 Dom Pedro made his famous fico declaration that he was staying in Brazil. Two days later they abolished higher courts and administration offices in Rio de Janeiro. Pedro went to the theater, and that night word spread that Portuguese troops were rampaging in the streets. Pedro spoke calmly from his royal box and ordered that peace be restored. Early the next morning General Jorge de Avilez commanded the mutineers in the Morro do Castelo. General Curado dispatched Brazilian forces, and they surrounded the Portuguese garrison with 8,000 troops. Avilez met with Dom Pedro who ordered him to leave Brazil. Avilez agreed if they could take their arms. Pedro promised to pay the troops, but any soldiers wishing to remain could stay. In January the deputies from Minas also decided to remain in Brazil. José Bonifacio de Andrada had presided over the junta in São Paulo since March 1821 and came to São Cristovao on 16 January 1822. Pedro appointed him Minister of Home and Foreign Affairs. Bonifacio demanded that Pedro promise he would not leave Brazil. Pedro also ordered military and naval operations to force the Portuguese out of Niteroi. On January 21 the ministry declared that no law made in Portugal could be enforced in Brazil without the approval of the prince regent. Brazil imposed a blockade on Niteroi on February 5, and ten days later the Portuguese had departed without one shot having been fired in the confrontation. On February 16 the Cortes was officially notified that Pedro was staying in Brazil, and José Bonifacio persuaded him to convene the Council of Procurators of the provinces.
      On 19 February 1822 the Portuguese Col. Ignacio Luis Madeira de Melo was appointed military governor of Bahia. The governing junta, Brazilian army officers, the Reconcavo, and urban radicals resisted but lost. The Portuguese troops forced to leave Rio in January came to Salvador, capital of Bahia, in March, giving Madeira de Melo 2,000 regulars and 1,500 militia.
      José Bonifacio de Andrada supported agrarian reform, free immigration, and the gradual abolition of slavery, but he was conservative in favoring monarchy and opposing democracy. On March 25 Dom Pedro left Rio de Janeiro to visit Minas Gerais and appeal to the people. The Junta at Ouro Preto accepted his rule, and he entered the capital city in triumph.
      Antonio Carlos of the São Paulo Junta presented Brazilian demands for political and economic equality to Portugal in March 1822, but it was too late for reconciliation with Portugal. Radicals called for independence, and in April the Reverbero Constitucional Fluminense urged Pedro to found an empire. They called a constitutional convention, and to serve in the government they had to swear to support the union and Brazil’s independence. On May 4 they decided that no decree of the Portuguese Cortes could be implemented in Brazil without the approval of the Prince Regent Pedro.
      On May 13 Dom Pedro was acclaimed as “perpetual defender of Brazil.” One week later the Rio City Council petitioned for a constitutional convention, and Pedro presented it to the Council of Procurators when they met for the first time on June 2. They voted unanimously, and the next day Pedro decreed the convocation of the constituent assembly which would meet the next year. On May 28 the Freemasons had created the Great Orient Lodge of Brazil and dedicated themselves to independence, and they elected José Bonifacio their grand master.
      On 23 May 1822 a delegation had urged Dom Pedro to call a general assembly of the provinces of Brazil, and the Cortes voted to send reinforcements to Salvador. On June 3 Pedro signed a decree calling for the election of deputies for the Constituent and Legislature General Assembly, but at first only Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and Minas Gerais cooperated. Pernambuco and Ceara could not decide, but the others remained loyal to the Cortes in Lisbon for a while. On June 19 the liberals failed in their attempt to get direct elections to the Assembly, and the radical leaders were imprisoned or driven into exile.
      On July 12 Dom Pedro proclaimed Brazil independent. Bonifacio wrote the “Manifestation to Friendly Governments and Nations,” and Pedro signed it on August 6. That month Pedro declared that troops from Portugal were to be considered enemies. On August 20 the Grand Orient Lodge of the Masonic Order proclaimed the complete separation of Brazil from Portugal.
      A draft constitution based on the Spanish constitution of 1812 was presented to the Assembly on 2 September 1822. While near São Paulo on the plain of Ipiranga on September 7 Dom Pedro received letters from Lisbon that his power had been reduced, but a week later he returned to Rio de Janeiro and proclaimed Brazil independent. On the 22nd he made the separation official by writing a letter to João VI. On his 24th birthday on October 12 in the Field of Santana he was acclaimed Pedro I, Constitutional Emperor and Perpetual Defender of Brazil. Seven deputies from São Paulo and Bahia refused to swear allegiance to the new Constitution and fled from Lisbon to Brazil. On October 27 José Bonifacio and his brother Martim Francisco, the treasury minister, resigned and demanded that Joaquim Gonçalves Ledo, José Clemente, and two others be arrested and deported. Arrest warrants were issued, and the brothers returned to their positions three days later. Ledo escaped to Buenos Aires, and Clemente was shipped to France. The Andrada brothers used their power to harass, jail, and exile their enemies in Rio, São Paulo, and other provinces. The radical Masonic lodges were closed for the remainder of Pedro’s reign. On December 1 Pedro was consecrated and crowned Emperor of Brazil. He was the Braganza House’s first king.
      On 22 June 1822 at Santo Amaro the sugar barons of the Reconcavo had rebelled against the Portuguese troops and João VI along with Brazilians, and they were able to halt the colonialism. On the 25th Col. Madeira had proclaimed Dom Pedro regent on behalf of the people of Bahia. They besieged the Portuguese army at Salvador, but Madeira de Melo failed to break the siege on November 8 and on 6 January 1823.

Brazil’s Independence 1823-44

      Dom Pedro had appointed the French officer Pierre Labatut to command the forces fighting the Portuguese, and he had arrived in late October 1822 but was replaced in a mutiny in May 1823 by José Joaquim de Lima e Silva who led an army of 14,000 men. The Portuguese dominated the sea, but English officers led by Thomas Cochrane had arrived in Rio de Janeiro on 23 March 1823 and organized a Brazilian squadron of nine ships that convinced the Portuguese to leave Bahia. On July 2 General Lima e Silva led the Brazilian army back into the city, and the Portuguese left Bahia the next day. The landowners of the Reconcavo had directed a conservative revolution against Portuguese colonialism in Bahia.
      After elections Brazil’s Constituent Assembly opened on 3 May 1823 with 90 deputies that included 26 lawyers, 22 judges, 19 priests, and 7 military officers. The Portuguese garrisons were sent back to Europe. They resisted in the Cisplantine Province but left in November. Treasury Minister Martim Francisco refused to borrow from foreign nations and floated domestic bonds but avoided issuing new bank notes. The public was urged to make gifts, and 64 contos was raised for the navy in 1823. The next year the deficit increased by only 15%. Dom Pedro ordered the justice minister to release all those in São Paul who had been arrested for their political views. José Bonifacio insisted that he withdraw the order and then resigned with his brother on July 16. He lost his position as chief minister because he had blocked access of critical liberals and conservatives to the throne.
      On 26 July 1823 Cochrane persuaded a small Portuguese garrison at São Luis to surrender the northern province of Maranhão which joined the Brazilian empire two days later. Dom Pedro made Cochrane the Marques do Maranhão, the first patent of nobility in the new empire. The provinces of Belem and Para brought Amazonia into the empire. On 10 August crowds in Belem began looting warehouses of the Portuguese merchants. The seditious Paraenses could not be held in the jails and were put in the hold of a ship in the harbor. Nervous guards fired shots, and 255 patriots were killed.
      On 12 August the Andradas and their associates started the newspaper O Tamoyo, named after an Indian tribe that had fought to the death and had been exterminated by the Portuguese occupation of Rio de Janeiro. The Assembly passed only six laws before Pedro formed a new cabinet and sent soldiers to dissolve them on 11 November. In two months of debate the Assembly had only voted on 24 of the 272 articles in the draft of the constitution. Dom Pedro promised a practical constitution that would be “twice as liberal.” The Andrada brothers were deported on 20 November and were given an annual pension of $1,250. José Bonifacio lived in France. The pro-Andrada newspapers in Rio folded, and Malagueta stopped publishing in July 1824.
      On 13 November 1823 Emperor Pedro appointed a Council of State to draft a constitution, and on 11 December he gave them a charter that protected religious freedom and abolished privileges except from office and citizenship for all free-born Brazilian and Portuguese who had lived in Brazil for 12 years. Rights included habeas corpus, trial by jury, and constitutional review of the criminal and civil codes. Torture was abolished. By the end of 1823 Brazil’s navy had overcome opposition to its independence. The last Portuguese troops left Brazil from Montevideo in March 1824 after the Cisplantine province joined independent Brazil.
      After more than half of the municipal councils of the provinces ratified the new liberal constitution, Emperor Pedro promulgated it on 25 March 1824. Brazil’s new government had four branches including one that gave the Emperor authority to settle disputes among the others. The concept of moderating power came from the French writer Benjamin Constant. Executive power was exercised by the ministers while imperial power was held to be neutral and moderate. The King was not to intervene in daily politics, but he settled disputes according to the “nation’s will and interests.” He could veto any legislation and could convoke or dissolve the Assembly and call for new elections. He appointed the provincial presidents, ministers, bishops, and senators. He could confer titles on people, but they were not hereditary. The General Assembly had a Senate with senators appointed for life from the three nominees the provinces elected. Brazilian men with an annual income of at least 100 milreis voted for electors whose income had to be 200 milreis, and they elected the Chamber of Deputies who had to be Catholic with an income of 400 milreis. The Emperor appointed those on the Council of State for life, and they had to be 40 years old with an income of 800 milreis. Rights included equal treatment before the law and freedom of thought and assembly, but slaves had no rights. The Roman Catholic church continued to be the official religion. In 1823 Brazil had 1,147,525 slaves, and the average number imported annually during the early 1820s was 30,000.
      The American Secretary of State John Quincy Adams advised President Monroe to meet with the Brazilian ambassador José Silvestre Rebello, and the United States became the first government to recognize Brazil as a nation on 26 May 1824. That year a revolt in Pernambuco was suppressed. Friar Joaquim do Amor Divino criticized the empire, and he was called Frei Caneca or Friar Mug. The councils of Olinda and Recife in Pernambuco rejected the provincial president appointed by Emperor Pedro and the constitution, but they remained loyal to the Emperor. Pedro sent the Imperial Navy at the end of March to blockade Recife; but President Mayrink was resisted and resigned at the end of May. Captain John Taylor then lifted the blockade and returned to Rio de Janeiro. Manuel da Carvalho led the urban revolt. He had married an American and had communicated with Secretary of State Adams, asking for a squadron to be sent to Recife to defend against British and French battleships to fulfill the recent Monroe Doctrine. Carvalho proclaimed the independence of Pernambuco on 2 July and urged the northeastern provinces of Brazil to form the Equatorial Confederation which was intended to include the provinces of Paraiba, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceara, and possibly Paiui and Para in a republic. Dom Pedro sent more forces, and the revolution in Pernambuco collapsed on 17 September. Thomas Cochrane led marines that secured the city of Fortaleza in rebellious Ceara for the empire on 17 October. The rebels were defeated militarily in the northeast provinces by November. The Emperor persuaded a court to sentence the leaders to death, but the executioner refused to hang Frei Caneca who was then shot by a firing squad in Recife on 13 January 1825.
      Brazilians imported more than they exported, increasing the trade debt. The British delayed recognition because they wanted Brazil to end the slave trade immediately. England sent Charles Stuart to mediate with King João VI, and he went to Rio de Janeiro and signed a treaty recognizing Brazil’s independence on 29 August 1825 that went into effect when João ratified it on 15 November. Brazil agreed to take over Portugal’s £1,400,000 debt to the British and pay João VI £600,000 for private property in Brazil. As Britain’s third largest foreign market Brazil became financially dependent on England and put no restrictions on their commerce. Emperor Pedro granted 104 titles of nobility on 12 October 1825. On 26 January 1826 he selected the senators from a lists made by electors from each province. After João VI’s death on 10 March, his son Pedro was likely to become King of Portugal, but on 6 May he opened the first General Assembly with a speech. He abdicated the Portuguese throne in May but acted as if he was still King. In 1827 justices of the peace and elected magistrates were introduced in every parish to handle administrative and police functions as well as judicial ones, and law schools were founded in Olinda and São Paulo.
      In September 1823 the envoy Valentín Gómez of the Argentine President Rivadavia had written a memorandum in Rio de Janeiro claiming that the Eastern Province had always been part of the United Rio de la Plata, but Brazilians refused to negotiate about their Cisplantine Province. The 33 Easterners led by Juan Antonio Lavallejo began the fight for independence in April 1825. On 25 August they declared the province independent, and they were supported by the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata. The Cisplantine War between Brazil and the Argentines went on with many skirmishes, and both sides suffered as 14,000 men fought a major battle at Ituzaingó on 20 February 1827. That month the Brazilians lost a naval battle at Juncal Island, but they defeated the Argentine navy in the battle of Monte Santiago by the Ensenada coast in April. They negotiated a peace treaty signed on 27 August 1828 that established the independence of Uruguay and allowed Brazil navigation rights on the Plata River.
      In June 1828 several thousand Irish and German mercenaries mutinied at Rio de Janeiro, and Brazil had to call in the aid of the British and French navies. Mule and cattle prices went up for a decade. Coffee exports from Brazil tripled from 1822 to 1831, but other exports fell during the 1820s. Sugar was about a third of Brazil’s exports and did not increase. A commercial treaty with the British made in August 1827 limited tariffs on British imports to 15% while the British could impose duties of 180% on Brazilian sugar and 300% on its coffee. Britain loaned Brazil £3 million with 80% interest in 1824 and £400,000 with 52% servicing in 1829. In 1821 when he left for Portugal, King João VI withdrew the gold he had deposited in the Bank of Brazil. From 1822 to 1829 Brazil’s money supplies increased 10% per year, raising the cost of living in cities. By 1829 paper money in São Paulo was worth only 57% of its nominal value, and Brazil’s bank had to close. People in Rio and other coastal cities demanded the deportation of the Portuguese. In 1830 Brazil adopted a liberal criminal code influenced by utilitarian ethics.
      France’s revolution that replaced King Charles X with a liberal king in July 1830 influenced Brazil. The partido desorganizador criticized the policies of Dom Pedro and his government, and he replied with a proclamation on 22 February 1831. People protested in mid-March with five Noites das Garrafadas (Nights of Bottle Throwing). On 5 April Pedro made his cabinet more Portuguese and reactionary. More than 3,000 people gathered, and justices of the peace urged him to reinstate his Brazilian cabinet. The Emperor’s battalion commanded by his brother followed by two artillery corps and a battalion of grenadiers joined the people. On the 7th Emperor Pedro abdicated in favor of his 5-year-old son Pedro II, and Brazil would be under a regency until he barely came of age in 1840. The crowd acclaimed the new Emperor, and the Legislature selected a regency of General Francisco de Lima e Silva, the liberal senator Verguerio from São Paulo, and the conservative former Justice Minister, the Marques de Caravelas. Pedro I and his family left for Europe on 13 April. Masons formed the first Sociedade Defensora da Libertade e Independência Nacional in São Paulo, and radicals organized Sociedas Federais in several provinces by the end of 1831. Evaristo da Veiga had begun publishing the liberal Aurora Fluminense newspaper in November 1827, and Mineiro Teofilo Ottoni helped him bring about liberal reforms between 1831 and 1835. In August 1831 Brazil implemented laws similar to those being adopted in France, and the National Guard replaced the militias. All male citizens aged from 21 to 60 could vote but had to serve in the National Guard.
      In 1832 the Code of Criminal Procedures increased the police and judicial powers of the justices of the peace. With a new Emperor born in Brazil, the young nation broke its ties to Portugal, though restorationists were not repressed until 1832. Four other uprisings were led by radicals such as Major Frias de Vasconcelos and the revolutionary Cipriano Barata. In September 1831 slaves joined a larger riot that took over Rio de Janeiro and looted 42 shops and 25 taverns. The government called out the militia and armed civilians to suppress the revolt in which about a hundred rebels and 30 soldiers and loyal citizens were killed as more than a thousand were arrested. In April 1832 those fighting to restore Pedro I rebelled in Recife as well as in Rio. The rebellion from 1832 to 1835 was called the War of Cabanos and it was most serious in Pará which wanted independence. After Pedro I’s death in September 1834, the war wound down. The O Homem de Cor became the first newspaper for blacks in Brazil in 1833.
      In August 1834 the Additional Act amended the 1824 constitution by eliminating the Council of State and increasing the power of provincial assemblies. The three-man regency was replaced when the native-born liberal priest and Minister of Justice Diogo Feijó was elected Regent in April 1835 and took office on 12 October. The central government began sharing revenue with the provinces in 1836. The “Brazilian Molière,” Martins Pena had his first comedy, O Juiz de Paz na Roça, performed in 1838 about a guardsman who is threatened with arrest and demands constitutional rights. Justices of the peace and juries were letting impunity increase as crimes against slaves and women were considered private.
      In 1835 Cabanagem revolts broke out in northern Para and in Rio Grande do Sul in the south. Many Portuguese were killed in Para, and others left the province. In January 1835 radicals killed Para’s president and the military commander. They made one of their leaders president and declared Para independent. The regents in Rio sent an elderly marshal to be president, but he arrived with only 120 men. In August a rebel army of mostly blacks and mestizos called tapuios attacked the capital Belém and in nine days killed about 180 whites. The president and about 5,000 people fled. The rebel president was killed in the fighting, and 21-year-old Eduardo Angelim replaced him. He organized an army, and the rebellion spread in the interior. Rebels raided towns and farms. General Andreia arrived as the new president with an army as Angelim and 5,000 people abandoned Belém. Andreia had rebels arrested and ordered those resisting shot. Angelim was arrested in October 1836, and the last rebels gave up during a general amnesty in 1840. Slavery had not been abolished, and Angelim had even had a slave insurrection put down.
      The province of Rio Grande do Sul was transformed from agriculture to livestock. The president suspected secessionists, and armed gaúchos (cowboys) overthrew him in Porto Alegre on 19 September 1835. A rich estancieiro (rancher) became president, and war erupted in February 1836. The liberal revolutionaries called farroupilhas declared independence in September. They invaded the province of Santa Catarina which was proclaimed a republic. This Ragamuffin War (Guerra dos Farrapos) went on until the armistice in March 1845 as the cattle business declined.
      The rebellion in Bahia was named Sabinada after its leader, the physician and journalist Sabino Barroso, but it began in an army barracks at the capital Salvador on 6 November 1837 and quickly gained support. About 5,000 rebels were defeated by some 4,000 government forces in Salvador on 13-15 March 1838 as about 1,200 rebels and 600 loyalists were killed. The amnesty in 1840 prevented the execution of seven leaders.
      The fourth revolt was called “Balaida” after the rebel leader who was a basket-maker. The province of Maranhão had more than 200,000 people, and more than half were slaves. The conservative president had transferred power from the justices of the peace to the mayors (prefeitos), and he began appointing the officers in the national guard. The cafuso (mixed Indian and black) cowboy Raimundo Gomes freed his jailed brother and others, and in December 1838 he became the leader of a revolt. The basket-maker Balaio joined, and the black Cosme led 3,000 escaped slaves. In August 1839 about 11,000 balaios occupied the city of Caxias. Brazil’s government sent 8,000 troops who suppressed the rebellion by 1841. Amnesty was declared except for Cosme who was hanged.
      After Veiga’s death in 1837 Regent Feijó lost support in the press and the parliament, and he resigned on 18 September. The conservative party led by Major Frias de Vasconcelos gained a majority. Senator Pedro de Araújo Lima was elected Regent, and he organized a government in 1838 and appointed as Minister of Justice and of the Empire Vasconcelos who was supported by Coimbra graduates and promoted education. They were supported by magistrates and the sugar and coffee planters. Vasconcelos and Paulino de Sousa worked to reform the liberal laws, and in June 1839 they introduced into the Senate a bill to give the central government control over the administration of law. The “interpretation” law passed in May 1840 reduced the power of provincial assemblies. The liberals decided to promote 14-year-old Emperor Pedro II to his majority, and on 23 July 1840 they managed to end the Regency to initiate the Second Empire of Brazil.
      Conflict caused the cabinet to collapse on 31 March 1841, and it was reorganized with Aureliano Coutinho, Paulino Soares de Sousa as Minister of Justice, and others. Vasconcelos helped Paulino establish the Council of State by law on 23 November and a reformed Code of Criminal Procedures on 3 December. This regressive code gave the central government more control over the empire with the Minister of Justice appointing judges. Anyone traveling in the empire had to carry a passport to avoid interrogation. On 1 May 1842 the conservative government dissolved the Chamber of Deputies and called new elections. That month São Paulo rebelled with arms followed by Minas Gerais in June, and the liberal rebellion moved into the Paraiba valley. Brazil’s liberals regained power in January 1844 and granted amnesty to Paulista and Mineiro rebels. That caused the Conservative cabinet to resign on February 2.
      Brazil’s main products—sugar, cotton, and coffee—were more than 75% of their exports. Brazil struggled with the anti-slave-trade treaty of 1826 and the commercial treaty of 1827 that they had made with Britain. For three years before the anti-slave trade treaty went into effect in March 1830 Brazil imported 175,000 slaves. The biggest urban slave uprising of the century was by Muslims in Salvador, Bahia on 24-25 January 1835; it was violently suppressed, and hundreds were punished. The death penalty was enacted for slaves who killed or seriously injured their masters, and juries needed only a two-thirds majority for conviction. In the 1830s over 400,000 slaves were illegally imported to Brazil mostly from the Congo, Angola, and Mozambique to work on the coffee plantations. By the 1840s Brazil was producing more than 40% of the world’s coffee. The Palmerston Act in 1839 allowed the British Navy to intercept slave ships, and this helped decrease slave imports to a total of 50,000 in 1841-43.

Brazil 1845-65

Argentine Revolution 1817-44

Rio de la Plata 1744-1810
Argentine Revolution 1810-17

      The Argentine revolution had begun in 1810, and the provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Rios, Corrientes, and the Eastern Province had formed the Federal League of Free Peoples in June 1815. Other revolutionary provinces sent delegates to the Congress of Tucuman. In May 1816 they elected Juan Martin de Pueyrredon to be Director, and in July they declared the independence of the United Provinces of Rio Plata.
      José Gervasio Artigas tried to fight the Portuguese invaders from June 1816, but Montevideo surrendered to the Portuguese in January 1817. Artigas became dependent on Santa Fe and Entre Rios, and the Federal League deteriorated. Finally in 1820 the leaders Estanislao López (r. 1818-38) of Santa Fe and Francisco “Pancho” Ramirez (r. 1817-21) of Entre Rios renounced Artigas who retreated to Corrientes and then to Paraguay. Director Pueyrredon imposed economic sanctions on the federalist provinces, but this added to their grievances against Buenos Aires. On 22 August 1818 Pueyrredon wrote to General San Martín that he could not send him the 500,000 pesos he had promised, and San Martín resigned on 6 September. In 1819 Pueyrredon endorsed a unitarist constitution authorizing Buenos Aires to nominate local officials and provincial governors. He sent an army into Santa Fe; but they were repelled, and revolts forced Pueyrredon to resign on June 9 and to take refuge in Montevideo.
      José Rondeau became Director, but the cavalries of Santa Fe, Entre Rios, and Corrientes defeated his army at Cepeda near Buenos Aires on 1 February 1820. The victorious caudillos demanded the constitution of 1819 be abrogated and that Buenos Aires accept federalism by allowing the election of its own governor and legislature, free navigation of rivers, and no interference with commerce. In the Treaty of Pilar signed in Buenos Aires on 23 February 1820 by the provisional governor Manuel de Sarratea for Buenos Aires and Ramirez for Entre Rios gave Lopez 25,000 cattle for the hungry people in Santa Fe. Ramirez tried to extend his governing to Corrientes and Cordoba, but Lopez defeated his forces and pursued him until Ramirez was captured and killed. Lopez proclaimed himself patriarch of the Federation, but he no longer had enough military power to threaten Buenos Aires. In January 1822 Buenos Aires, Entre Rios, Santa Fe, and Corrientes agreed to the Quadrilateral Treaty to defend the national territory.
      Cordoba declared its independence on 17 January 1820, but on 1 March La Rioja broke away from Cordoba which adopted a constitution on 30 January 1821. On 22 March 1820 Governor Bernabé Araoz of Tucuman created the independent Federal Republic of Tucuman with the provinces of Tucuman, Catamarca, and Santiago del Estero, but the other two provinces rebelled against Tucuman the next year.
      After a series of governors struggled to govern Buenos Aires, on 20 September 1820 Martin Rodriguez became provisional governor. He negotiated with Lopez and Ramirez, and he managed to suppress an internal revolt. Rodriguez governed until April 1824 and concentrated on the frontier wars. In June 1821 he appointed Bernardino Rivadavia minister, and he promoted free trade, European immigration, and land reform. He was a disciple of Jeremy Bentham and introduced modern accounting and limited the power of the Church, the police, and the military. A law passed on 4 September 1821 made private property inviolable and gave the legislature the power to tax, pleasing foreign merchants. That year they established universal male suffrage. Also Rivadavia founded the University of Buenos Aires and provided it with a state subsidy. He supplied the library with the latest books on medicine, science, and political economy. The Sociedad de Beneficiencia was established for charity and the education of women.
      The provinces held another national Congress in 1822. In June the British Navigation Acts opened shipping to the former Spanish dependencies to all ports in the British empire. In the next two years import duties provided 84% of provincial revenues. British merchants dominated a new discount bank. In 1823 Rivadavia separated servants from owners and required the former to have signed papers or face a penalty of five years in the militia. In January 1824 Rivadavia got a loan of £1,000,000 to construct new harbor facilities; but the government got only £700,000 while the House of Baring got £30,000, and the agents John Parish Robertson and Felix Castro £120,000 each. Juan Gregorio de las Heras succeeded Rodriguez as governor in April. Rivadavia visited London and helped organize the River Plate Mining Company with British capital in December. On 29 November the provincial legislature prohibited the importing of grain, and El Argos called it economically insane. At Buenos Aires on 2 February 1825 the United Provinces of Rio la Plata signed a commercial treaty with Britain that was greatly celebrated.
      After Rodriguez’s campaign took more frontier land from the natives, Rivadavia applied the Roman law of Emphyteusis in 1826 by granting long-term rights and use of land with lower rents for merchants than for ranchers and farmers. The government leased land to persons and companies for 8% of the assessed value of pasture land and 4% of crop land. This promoted the transition to ranching. Lessees undervalued the land and paid practically no rent on registered claims that had no limit. About 6.5 million acres quickly went to 122 individuals and partnerships, and by 1830 only 538 persons and corporations had gained 20 million acres.
      A Congress meeting since 1822 produced a Constitution in 1826 and elected Rivadavia president of the United Provinces of South America. Juan Antonio Lavalleja led Easterners who left Buenos Aires and mobilized support at Colonia. Brazil declared war on the United Provinces and supported the east bank. Rivadavia used the war to raise an army and then imposed the Constitution on the provinces. Lavalleja’s guerrillas could not take Montevideo. Brazil’s navy blockaded Buenos Aires disrupting trade that fell by two-thirds in three years. Trade, which had been 80% of revenues, was reduced to 20% in 1825-28. The army of 20,000 men produced a large deficit as revenues dropped to only 55% of spending. In early 1827 the provinces of Córdoba, La Rioja, Catamarca, and Santiago del Estero led by Juan Bautista Bustos, Facundo Quiroga, and Felipe Ibarra allied to fight against the constitution. Rumors of cattleman revolting in Buenos Aires scared the British and merchants into abandoning the government, and Bernardino Rivadavia resigned on 27 June. He had supported progressives by starting the Benevolent Society, the College of Moral Science, and the University of Buenos Aires, but these angered conservatives by weakening the Church.
      Another civil war broke out, and Rivadavia’s replacement, Manuel Dorrego, canceled the Constitution and recognized provincial autonomy as he became Governor of Buenos Aires. The United Provinces became the Argentine Confederation of the River Plate. Dorrego accepted British mediation by the envoy Ponsonby, and Brazil and Buenos Aires agreed to a treaty at Montevideo on 27 August 1828 that created the Eastern Republic of Uruguay between them. The army split as General Juan Lavalle took troops to Buenos Aires while José Maria Paz led others to Córdoba. Lavelle overthrew and had Dorrego executed in December. Paz defeated Bustos at San Roque in Córdoba on 22 April 1829 and withstood an attack by Quiroga’s forces from La Rioja. General Juan Manuel de Rosas led the militia in Buenos Aires for Federalism and allied with Estanislao López in Santa Fe, and at Puente de Márquez on 26 April they defeated Lavalle who fled to Montevideo. On 3 November Rosas came to Buenos Aires as the Federalist leader, and he restored order and became Governor on December 6. He formed an army and intimidated his opponents with censorship and banishment, and he represented the rising power of the ranchers by shifting spending to rural areas and cutting urban expenditures in half.
      Paz defeated Quiroga in early 1830 and took over provinces adjoining Córdoba, and 9 of the 14 Argentine provinces were in his Unitarian League by August. However, López gathered forces and attacked Paz with the army of Rosas and captured Paz in 1831. Pax was imprisoned for four years, and the Unitarian League dissolved.
      In 1832 the British Navy took over the Malvinas Islands and renamed them the Falklands despite the protests of Argentina, the United States, and France. Juan Manuel de Rosas ended his term as Governor of the Buenos Aires province on 5 December 1832. In March 1833 he led a military expedition into the southern frontier of the southern Pampas and northern Patagonia as far as Rio Negro. When the Ranquel and Mapuche people refused to negotiate and attacked rural villages, Rosas treated them as enemies. After his return in 1834 he claimed that his army had killed 3,200 natives and had taken 1,200 prisoners while rescuing 1,000 captives. He appropriated land and granted it to officers in the expedition. Juan Ramón Balcarce had been elected governor in 1832, but the legislature replaced him in November 1833 with General Viamonte. Rosas made him resign in June 1834, and the legislators agreed to let their president Manuel Vicente Maza become governor.
      The Federalist leader Facunda Quiroga wanted a new constitution, but he was assassinated in February 1835. With civil war impending Rosas resumed being governor again on March 7. He was elected again on April 13, but this time he got dictatorial power. He used terror and assassination to maintain political loyalty, killing about 2,000 people by 1852. In 1836 a tariff law prohibited importing cattle products, maize, timber, and butter. The commercial depression went on in the 1830s until 1837 when trade recovered to its 1825 activity. The emphyteusis land contracts expired in 1836, and private ownership took over by 1838. By the 1840s several ranchers owned more than a million acres. Rosas owned 800,000 acres and 500,000 cattle.
      On 19 March 1837 Rosas declared war against the Peru-Bolivian Confederation that was allied with the Unitarists. In the late 1830s citizens of Buenos Aires were forced to wear the red color of the Federalists in parades. Rosas would not give the French commercial concessions or pay indemnities, and in 1838 a French fleet blockaded Buenos Aires. In 1839 they aided the exiled Unitarist General Lavalle who invaded Entre Rios from Montevideo. Uruguay declared war on Rosas, and Bolivians also invaded. Cattle ranchers south of the Salado River in Chascomús rebelled, but the army led by Rosas’ brother defeated them in November. The British persuaded the French to end the blockade in 1840 as Rosas paid a small indemnity. They drove Lavalle north to Salta, and in 1841 he was killed in Jujuy, ending the civil war. Rosas maintained a standing army of 20,000 men and had 15,000 militia. Military spending was 23.8 million pesos or 47% of the budget in 1840 and rose to 71% in 1841. For the remainder of his regime it was always at least 49%. During the civil war in Uruguay in 1842 both sides freed the slaves.

Argentina and Paraguay 1845-65

Paraguay 1817-44

      A Paraguay Congress (Cabildo) had appointed José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia a dictator in 1814, and in 1816 another Cabildo made him dictator for life. In 1817 he began appointing all the members of the Cabildo in Asunción. In 1818 Francia started imprisoning political opponents, and by December 1821 there were more than a hundred political prisoners. José Artigas, who had led a revolution in Uruguay, lost power there on 5 September 1820 and took refuge in Paraguay, where he lived in exile until his death in 1850. In 1820 Francia had more than 300 Spaniards incarcerated for 18 months. Wealthy Spaniards were also exiled or killed. In June 1821 Francia had 68 Creole conspirators shot, and scores spent years in jail. Because of the 1820 conspiracy more arrests were made in 1822 and 1823. That year he ordered all the natives of Santa Fe in Paraguay arrested, and they did not learn why until 1834. None were released until after Francia’s death in 1840. In 1825 he closed the Cabildo. In June he ordered merchants in Pilar arrested, but in August the Paraguayan government received the first diplomat (Correa from Brazil) since 1813. Brazil and Argentina fought much of their Cisplantine War from 1825 to 1828 in Paraguay. In 1828 Francia broke off relations with the Vatican, and he took over appointing bishops and priests. He imposed order and encouraged hard work, increasing agriculture and stock raising.
      After the death of Paraguay’s Dictator Francia on 20 September 1840 a provisional junta ruled. They ordered Artigas and other influential foreigners arrested, and they did not release Francia’s 600 political prisoners. Carlos Antonio López returned to his home in Trinidad and met with dissatisfied officers. On 23 January 1841 an army unit surrounded Government House, and Sergeant Duré ordered the members of the Junta shackled and proclaimed a triumvirate with two city mayors; but on February 9 the officer Mariano Roque Alonso overthrew Duré and prepared for an assembly. Alonso took command and with his secretary Carlos Antonio López and the approval of the army they summoned a congress to meet on March 12. Partidos elected nearly 500 delegates, and they met in the Church of San Francisco and elected Alonso and López consuls for three years.
      López was 54 years old and well educated but obese. Alonso let López govern while chain-smoking cigars between large meals. López opened schools to improve literacy. In 1844 Alonso resigned, and a constitution gave López much power and provided an assembly elected by property-owners. In 1844 the Congress voted López a ten-year term as President.

Argentina and Paraguay 1845-65

Chilean Revolution 1817-44

Chile 1744-1817

      Director Pueyrredon appointed Argentine General José de San Martín commander and captain-general of the Army of the Andes and sent him on an expedition into Chile. They left Mendoza on 9 January 1817 with 5,200 men, 10,600 mules, 1,600 horses, 700 cattle, and specially dried food. San Martín led them across the Andes. They suffered lack of oxygen and cold, but less than a hundred men died. San Martín sent out contingents that secured Coquimbo and Talca. On February 12 his main army defeated the royalists at Chacabuco in Chile, killing about 500 Spaniards and capturing 600 while only 12 of his men were killed in the battle, though many of the 120 wounded died later. Captain-General Marco del Ponte fled but was captured. The Council of Santiago wanted San Martín to govern Chile; but he said he came to liberate, not to rule, and he proclaimed Bernardo O’Higgins supreme director. He decreed a tax on rural property and incomes of public employees, but it is not known how much they collected. On 12 February 1818 the patriots at Talca declared the independence of Chile. The royalists managed to hold the southern naval base at Talcahuano. On March 18 General Mariano Osorio’s forces surprised the patriots at Cancha Rayada, and most of them fled. However, they gathered at San Fernando and defeated Osorio at Maipu on April 5, killing 2,000 and capturing 2,200 men while suffering about 1,000 casualties. They also captured 4,000 muskets, 1,200 blunderbusses, 12 cannons, and the Spanish supplies. The city of Santiago gave San Martín 10,000 pesos to thank him, and he donated it to a hospital.
      Bernardo O’Higgins supported San Martín’s campaign in Peru and governed Chile for six years. He decreed the abolition of noble titles and other relics of the feudal system. He improved the streets, provided a market, completed the Maipo canal, supported public health, supported education with special attention to the poor, and established a theater in Santiago. O’Higgins helped the indigenous Araucanians by improving their rights in Chilean society. Chile’s independence was recognized by Brazil, Mexico, and the United States. O’Higgins implemented a constitution in 1818 with a legislative Senate of five members and a supreme judiciary. Resistance was still strong, and the constituent congress was not achieved. O’Higgins had decreed an end to mayorazgo (entails on property), but the Senate cancelled it in December 1819. He protected the Catholic Church but respected the liberty of conscience of foreign Protestants. In 1820 he appointed Rodriguez Aldea minister of finance, but he alienated private business by using his office for personal gain. He speculated in consumer goods, favored his own interests in Valparaiso by withholding export permits from Concepcion, and gave monopolies to himself and his friends.
      The Senate tried to limit the rule of San Martín in Peru to protect slavery, but O’Higgins refused to transmit their instructions. After that the Senate stopped cooperating with him. In January 1822 O’Higgins took over the duties of the Senate. In May he summoned a convention that drafted a new constitution in October, but the liberal O’Higgins was still the autocratic executive. This increased the resistance that reached Santiago on 28 January 1823 when a Cabildo Abierto met and demanded that O’Higgins resign. He refused but eventually yielded to a special commission that appointed a junta with three members.
      On 30 March representatives from three provinces signed an Act of Union that called for equal representation in a senate and a constituent congress. The Junta selected General Ramón Freire, the intendant of Concepcion, to be Supreme Director on April 4, and he served until 9 July 1826. On 29 December 1823 the Junta promulgated a new constitution devised by Juan Egaña that created elected assemblies in each province and in local communities as small as ten households. The Constitution also abolished slavery and included a moral code of what citizens should and should not do, which made it unpopular. The abolition of slavery was confirmed in the constitutions of 1828 and 1833, though the inquilinaje or tenant farming remained. On 14 July 1824 Freire informed the Senate he was resigning because he could not govern under the 1823 Constitution. The Senate agreed to reform it, and on 19 July people demonstrated against the Constitution in the streets of Santiago. The Senate gave Freire more power, and some sections of the Constitution were suspended. A new Congress was elected and met on November 22. They declared the Constitution null and void on December 29. Egaña blamed the downfall of his Constitution on the liberals.
      The province of Concepcion withdrew their deputies and established their own assembly on 20 April 1825, and Coquimbo did so on May. On June 15 Freire met with prominent citizens in Santiago in a public meeting and agreed to govern with the counsel of a new junta. He tried to gain reconciliation with provinces, and in July he ordered the convocation of another national Congress. However, only Santiago elected deputies. The Congress met in September but could not act nationally. On October 7 the Congress suspended Director Freire, and he used force to dissolve the Congress. In November he set up a Directorial Council to govern Chile while he traveled in the south. The Council was headed by the federalist José Miguel Infante.
      After failed campaigns in 1820 and 1824 independent Chile liberated the forested island of Chiloe from the Spaniards in 1826 and made it part of the Republic. In July 1826 the Congress called for the election of a president to replace the Supreme Director. Freire was elected and became President of Chile on 25 January 1827, but he resigned and was succeeded on May 8 by the liberal Vice President Francisco Antonio Pinto. He adopted a liberal constitution in 1828, but Congress finally accepted his resignation on 16 July 1829. In the presidential election two conservatives split much of the vote, but the liberal Congress chose Francisco Ramón de Vicuña who acted as President for most of the time until December 7. In September the army in Concepcion had backed a coalition of Conservatives that included traditionalists who supported the clergy, followers of the exiled O’Higgins, and a group of investors in a failed tobacco monopoly. On 6 April 1830 the trader Diego Portales gained two of the three cabinet portfolios. Then on the 17th Conservatives led by General José Joaquín Prieto defeated the Liberals and Freire in a battle near Talco by the Lircay River, ending a brief civil war.
      In the 1830s the Republic of Chile’s territory stretched from the Atacama Desert in the north and south to the frontier by the Biobío River, beyond which were several hundred thousand Mapuche natives called Araucanians by the Spaniards. Chile had few highways except between Valparaiso and Santiago. They used ships and began building railroads in the 1840s. A census found more than one million people in 1835. From the 1830s to the 1860s more than 80% of Chileans were inquilinos (tenant workers) or worked on haciendas or barely survived by stealing. Mined silver and copper as well as agricultural products were the largest exports.
      The Conservative government provided a Constitution in 1833 that gave much power to the President who was allowed two consecutive 5-year terms. Congress could vote him strong powers. When Congress was in recess, the Council of State could declare a state of siege that also suspended civil liberties. The administration had a hierarchy of command with provinces governed by intendants who were “agents” of the President. In 1831 General Prieto was elected President, and Diego Portales governed as Minister of the Interior and Foreign Affairs. He began by removing 136 military officers who had served General Freire in the civil war. By the middle of 1831 the Civic Guard had 25,000 men, and it would more than double by 1850. The Civic Guard saved the Conservative government during a mutiny in June 1837. Only about 2% of the people were qualified to vote, though the literacy rule was ignored and only partially enforced after 1840. Governors influenced elections by how they distributed voting certificates so that often opponents could not register. In seven of the eleven congressional elections from 1833 to 1864 the opposition ran hardly any candidates.
      Portales resigned in August 1831; but he was appointed Minister of War and Navy on 21 September 1835 and Interior Minister on November 9. Chile’s second largest city Concepcion was ruined by an earthquake in February 1835. Then Santiago’s population of 70,000 increased to 120,000 by 1865. General Prieto was elected President in 1831 and was re-elected to another 5-year term in July 1836 as the electoral colleges gave him all but 15 of their 158 votes. After a brief tariff war Peru had imposed a duty on wheat from Chile which then doubled its tariff on Peruvian sugar. General Andrés Santa Cruz joined Peru with Bolivia with himself as Protector of the Confederation in October. Portales was concerned that exiled General Ramón Freire was planning to attack the Conservative government, and he demanded that the Confederation be dissolved; but Santa Cruz refused. The Chilean envoy Mariano Egaña declared war, and the Congress ratified it on 24 December and declared a state of siege in January 1837 for the war. Portales required returning exiles to get permission or be shot, and on February 2 permanent courts martial were ordered for every province with no appeals.
      Portales summoned Col. José Antonio Vadaurre and asked if he was conspiring to revolt. Vadaurre denied it but then captured Portales when he came to inspect his troops. Soldiers found the murdered body of Portales on 6 June 1837. His state funeral supported the Conservative regime. People believed that Vadaurre’s mutiny was supported by Santa Cruz’s agents. Admiral Manuel Blanco Encalada led an army of 2,800 to Islay in Peru, and they occupied Arequipa but were devastated by disease. Santa Cruz led an army that surrounded the city, and on 17 November he got Blanco Encalada to accept the treaty of Paucarpata in which
Chile recognized the Confederation. General Manuel Bulnes led a force of 5,400 soldiers from Valparaiso in July 1838, and they won a small naval battle at Casma on 12 January 1839. Bulnes invaded a northern state in Peru that was asserting independence and demanded that Chileans leave. Bulnes had his army occupy Lima, but then they withdrew to the north. Santa Cruz led a force that followed them, but on January 20 the Chileans with 600 North Peruvian dissidents vanquished the Peruvians at Yungay as about 2,000 men were killed. Chileans occupied Lima again in April, and the Confederation was dissolved in August.
      Liberals formed a Patriotic Society in February 1840, and they began working for opposition candidates. They successfully opposed the Minister of Justice Egaña’s attempt to weaken the 1828 law on press freedom, and Egaña resigned in March 1841. The triumphant General Manuel Bulnes was Prieto’s nephew, and Chileans elected him their President in September and would again in 1846. The scholarly lawyer Manuel Montt became Minister of Justice. Chile began teacher colleges for men in 1842. In November El Progreso became Santiago’s first daily newspaper. Chileans established a settlement on the Straits of Magellan in September 1843 and then made it a penal colony.

Chile 1845-65


Copyright © 2020 by Sanderson Beck

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Brazil, Argentina & Chile 1817-44
Venezuela, Colombia & Peru 1817-44

Caribbean & Central America 1817-44
Mexico and Democracy 1817-44
US Era of Monroe & J. Q. Adams 1817-2
Native Tribes, Removal & the West
Jacksonian Democracy 1829-37
US Depression, Van Buren & Tyler 1837-44
Canada Becomes Democratic 1817-44
Slavery and Abolitionists 1817-44
Women Reforming America 1817-44
American Philosophy & Religion 1817-44
Emerson’s Transcendentalism
Literature of Irving, Cooper & Whittier
Summary & Evaluating America 1817-44
Bibliography

ETHICS OF CIVILIZATION Index
World Chronology to 1830
Chronology of America to 1844

BECK index