Confederation of the Equator

Confederation of the Equator, a separatist movement in Northeast Brazil in 1824. Reaction by provinces in Brazil's Northeast to the dissolution of the 1823 Constituent Assembly by Dom Pedro I is usually cited as the main cause for the rebellion, although others point to the political ambitions of rebel leaders, especially Manuel de Carvalho Pais de Andrade. Andrade, a member of the governing junta in 1824, issued a series of proclamations renouncing Dom Pedro's control and establishing a republic called the Confederation of the Equator. Royal troops commanded by Brigadier Francisco de Lima e Silva, supported by a five-ship armada under Lord Thomas Cochrane, attacked the port city of Recife, Pernambuco. The revolt, however, spread to the provinces of Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, and Ceará, provoking further fighting in those areas. Several principal leaders, including the famous Frei Joaquim do Amor Divino Rabelo e Caneca, editor of the newspaper, O Tífis Pernambucano, were captured, tried, and executed. Others, including Pais de Andrade, who took refuge aboard a British naval vessel, escaped to the exterior. Order was reestablished in the area by Francisco de Lima e Silva by 1 December 1824. Andrade later (7 March 1825) was permitted to swear allegiance to the Imperial Constitution and reenter public life with an appointment as senator from Pernambuco.

See alsoBrazil: 1808–1889 .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sérgio Buarque De Holanda, ed., Historia geral da civilzaçao brasileira, vol. 1, pt. 1 (1962), pp. 227-237; Dicionário de história do Brasil (1973), pp. 474-475.

E. Bradford Burns, A History of Brazil, 2d ed. (1980), pp. 168-169.

Additional Bibliography

Barman, Roderick. Brazil: The Forging of a Nation, 1798–1852. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988.

Barman, Roderick. Citizen Emperor: Pedro II and the Making of Brazil, 1825–91. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999.

Graham, Richard. Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-century Brazil. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.

Janscó, István. Independencia: Historia e historiografia. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec, 2005.

Mosher, Jeffrey. "Challenging Authority: Political Violence and the Regency in Pernambuco, Brazil, 1831–1835." Luso-Brazilian Review 37 (Winter 2000): 33-57.

Rohrig, Matthias Assuncao. "Elite Politics and Popular Rebellion in the Construction of Post-colonial Order. The Case of Maranhao, Brazil (1820–41.)" Journal of Latin American Studies 31 (February 1999): 1-38.

                                        Robert A. Hayes