Monte Alegre, José da Costa Carvalho, Marquís de (1796–1860)

José da Costa Carvalho, Marquis de Monte Alegre (b. 7 February 1796; d. 18 September 1860), Brazilian statesman. Monte Alegre was one of the Coimbra-trained magistrates central to the early monarchy. In the opposition to Pedro I, he represented Bahia in the Constituent Assembly of 1823 and in the legislatures that obstructed Pedro I to the point where he chose to abdicate in 1831. As president of the Chamber of Deputies, Monte Alegre was a natural choice of the moderados for one of the three "permanent" regents during Pedro II's minority (1831–1840). Like many Moderados he shifted to the right under the subsequent regency of Diogo Antônio Feijó and emerged as a São Paulo deputy in the Conservative-majority Chamber of Deputies of 1837, whence he was elevated to the Senate (for Sergipe) in 1839. As provincial president, he was the Conservatives' point man during the 1842 Liberal revolt in São Paulo, the province where he had served as a judge (1821–1822), edited the periodical Farol Paulistano (1827–1831), directed the faculty of law (1835–1836), and married (twice) into the planter elite. A councillor of state in 1842, he also served (1849–1852) as the prime minister and minister of the empire in an administration dominated by the Saquarema reactionaries. That cabinet is credited with internal peace, reforms, and stability; the end of the slave trade; and the war against Juan Manuel de Rosas.

See alsoBrazil, Political Parties: Moderados .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Joaquim Nabuco, Um estadista do império, vols. 1 and 2 (1898–1899).

Roderic J. Barman, Brazil: The Forging of a Nation (1988).

Additional Bibliography

Barman, Roderic J. Citizen Emperor: Pedro II and the Making of Brazil, 1825–1891. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999.

Dennison, Stephanie. Joaquim Nabuco: Monarchism, Panamericanism and Nation-Building in the Brazilian Belle Epoque. Oxford, New York: Peter Lang, 2006.

Vidigal, Gerardo de Camargo. O marquez de Monte Alegre: Alvorecer de um estadista. São Paulo: IBRASA, 1999.

                                       Jeffrey D. Needell