This is how the womanizing emperor whose heart is still embalmed in formalin became independent from Portugal

The scene was from a movie, and not one of those on Sunday afternoon. On September 7, 1822, two centuries ago now, a young man with curly hair and a thin mustache unsheathed his sword in front of a mighty river and uttered a phrase that resonated in history: “For my blood, for my honor, for my God, I swear to promote freedom. Independence or death! The until then prince regent thus became Pedro I, monarch and emperor of Brazil, and put an end to a process of emancipation with Portugal that was unique in the world. Or ‘sui generis’, as historians have called it up to now: without violence, without traumas and away – it is sometimes claimed with resentment – ​​from those who exploded in the Spanish overseas territories. That’s what we have been told, but the truth is gray and goes beyond that fairy tale picture. Neither was the river a sort of American Nile – rather it was a stream – nor was independence so neat. “The biggest myth is that it was a peaceful transition. The truth is that thousands of troops were mobilized and between 3,000 and 5,000 victims were counted, “says José Manuel Santos Pérez, doctor in History and director of the Center for Brazilian Studies at the University of Salamanca. João Paulo G. Pimienta, also a doctor and author of ‘And it stopped being a colony: an independence from Brazil’ and ‘Brazil and the independences of Latin America’, is of the same opinion: «It was a drastic rupture in many ways, but not economic and social level. In these cases it was continuous. They both reply to ABC from across the Atlantic. Normal, since the region is the seat of a thousand and one congresses that try to explain its founding episode. The movement is similar in our neighboring country, where a great effort is made to reveal what happened without myths or clichés. Miguel Monteiro, vice-president of the Academia Portuguesa da História (APH), confirms that Portugal did not hold – nor does it hold – any grudge against its former colony: «There was resentment for a few years, but the situation slowly normalized when Pedro I crossed the sea to fight for the rights of her daughter, María da Gloria». Calm reigns to such an extent that the Portuguese have donated the emperor’s embalmed heart for the bicentennial celebrations at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia. Winds of change Despite the differences, the three agree that the history of independence began to the sound of the drums and the fifes of the French army. In December 1807, with Napoleon Bonaparte at the gates of the Iberian Peninsula, Prince Regent João VI and his court left Portugal and took refuge in Brazil, the richest of its colonies. “The entire ‘state’ apparatus moved, between 10,000 and 15,000 people,” explains Santos. Ministers, senior officials… The fact that the highest power structure settled in Rio de Janeiro changed, ‘de facto’, its status. For Pimienta, that left both areas in “an ambiguous situation in which the traditional importance of Portugal as the center of the empire was displaced.” It was an unprecedented transposition. Uncertainty lasted for seven years, until the ‘Grand Armée’ left Portugal. And even then the tides did not calm down. In 1815, the Congress of Vienna decreed the restoration of the monarchies that Napoleon had overthrown. João VI had little left but to return to his homeland. But, by then, the Portuguese-Brazilian elites had already internalized the metropolis, bought land and amassed fortunes. The result was that they refused to return to the depressed peninsular territory. According to Santos, those pressures, together with the idea of ​​refounding the empire from a new focus and the incipient independence movements, put the regent in trouble. The solution was that of Solomon’s judgment: the birth of the ‘United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarve’. The president of Brazil receives the relic of Emperor ABC The measure was made to equate both territories and to prevent the departure of João, already king after the death of his battered mother in 1816. «The court decided to stay. Among other things, for fear of republican and pro-independence influences, but also for economic interests,” reveals Pimienta. The expert confirms that that decision was the umpteenth nail in the coffin lid. Political equality, the importance of Brazil as an economic locomotive and the royal refusal to return fueled the flames of emancipation and, in turn, the despair of the Portuguese monarchists settled in old Europe. The tension became palpable in August 1820 and February 1821 with the outbreak of two revolutions that demanded the return of the monarch to the peninsula and his acceptance of a constitution similar to ‘la Pepa’, the Spanish one of 1812. After the revolt of 1821, João gave in and returned to Portugal with part of his court. Although he pulled an ‘ace’ up his sleeve. “He left the infant Pedro in Brazil as prince regent in the hope of continuing to be connected to the territory,” says Monteiro. The vice president of the APH believes that it was a high-level political movement: one that put him ahead of Fernando VII. “In the war, the Spanish court had been held hostage by Napoleon and had lost its fleet, which was very serious for the cohesion of its American territories,” he says. The reality is that he was of no use to her. According to Santos, “when the new Portuguese liberal courts decreed recolonizing measures, and back to the previous ‘status quo’, the elites of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo pushed Pedro to proclaim independence.” Exaggerated myths And from the palpable facts, to the most exacerbated myths. For two centuries, historians have claimed that Brazil became independent without firing a gun. Fallacies. After the Cry of Ypiranga in front of that stream, Pedro I quelled a series of uprisings in the Cisplatina Province, Bahia, Piauí, Maranhão and Pará. It was not until 1823 that the new imperial army took hold. Pepper invites us to remove, once and for all, the blindfold and understand that such a complex process could not be monolithic: «Politically it was an important rupture because new institutions and a state had to be created. In exchange, at the economic and social level there was a certain continuity on the part of the elites». Another of the myths of independence is that the new political entity that emerged from the proclamation was a homogeneous and cohesive entity. Santos is against this maxim: “During the independence process there were several future projects for Brazil, including some republican ones, but the one that was triumphant was that of the elites; a centralist and slave-owning model that, during subsequent years, was imposed on the rest of the country by force». This trip resulted in the existence of perennial violence that caused thousands of deaths. “In turn, the territorial unity was openly questioned until 1845, with regional independence movements in five of the provinces that constituted the new empire,” he concludes. “During the independence process there were several future projects for Brazil, including some republican ones, but the one that triumphed was that of the elite” José Manuel Santos Pérez Pedro I himself is a mythologized character. The historian María Pilar Queralt del Hierro, author of ‘Reinas en la sombra. Lovers and courtesans who changed history ‘he confesses to ABC that he has overlooked the darkest side of him: «He was cultured, refined, a great musician and loved to write. In return, he was restless and unstable. He lost his fondness for women, as he had several mistresses. In addition, and although it is difficult to know, it is believed that her wife, María Leopoldina, died of a spontaneous abortion caused by a beating by her husband ». The expert prefers to claim the role of this first lady. “She is called the ‘Mother of the Country’ because she signed the declaration of independence in the absence of her husband and promoted the creation of the empire,” she insists. Related News standard Yes Two days in the bastions of Bildu with a former Civil Guard anti-terrorist commando: “We are better than the SEALs” Manuel P. Villatoro Juan José Mateos, former member of the GAR and author of ‘Pikoletos: The defeat of ETA and the elite of the Civil Guard’, returns with ABC to the same towns in which he arrested ETA members more than twenty years ago. The emperor also had a murky ending that, in part, was hidden thanks to romanticism. According to Queralt, in 1831 he abdicated after a revolt put his power in check: «He was not wanted. He had many ups and downs regarding independence. His true intentions and his true relationship with his father were unknown.” Disturbed, he traveled to Europe and sought support to dethrone Miguel I of Portugal and raise his daughter, María da Gloria, to the throne. He succeeded and triumphantly entered Lisbon in 1834. Before his death, which occurred that same year, he asked that his heart be removed from his body and that it be taken to Porto, where he would return after the splendor of the bicentennial. His body was transferred to Brazil in 1972. Today, therefore, Don Pedro continues as he lived: straddling two nations.