Paraná, Honôrio Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marqués de (1801–1856)

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Paraná, Honôrio Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marqués de (1801–1856)

Honôrio Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marqués De Paraná (b. 11 January 1801; d. 3 September 1856), Brazilian statesman and diplomat—the preeminent political figure of the 1850s. Because Paraná was a Coimbra-trained magistrate, his ascent as a jurist was rapid but was soon eclipsed by his political success in the early regency. As a moderado deputy for Minas Gerais, he was celebrated for turning back Diogo Antônio Feijó's 1832 attempt to reform the Constitution of 1824; though he was quickly taken up by the regents as minister of justice (1832), his party enemies brought him down. In the Chamber of Deputies, however, Paraná worked with Bernardo de Vasconcelos and the Saquaremas to organize a majority and form the Conservative Party in opposition to Feijó's regency (1835–1837); by 1842 he was a member of the Senate and Council of State.

Minister of justice, then minister of foreign affairs, in the Conservative administration of 1843–1844, Paraná also defended Conservative goals in repressing the Liberal revolts of 1842 and the Praieira Revolt of 1848 (as provincial president of Rio de Janeiro and of Pernambuco, respectively) and in effecting the Platine diplomacy that led to the war that toppled Argentina's Juan Manuel de Rosas in 1852. In 1853, Pedro II asked Paraná to lead an administration that would terminate the partisan domestic strife in which Paraná had triumphed. He did so, as prime minister of the Conciliação cabinet, which he composed of willing veterans and able new protégés from both parties. He broke with the Saquarema chieftains to establish a climate of nonpartisan patronage and statism, constructive reform, and more representative elections. He thus closed the era of the monarchy's consolidation.

See alsoFeijó, Diogo Antônio; Minas Gerais; Praieira Revolt.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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

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

Richard Graham, Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (1990).

Additional Bibliography

Rohloff de Matos, llamar. Otempo Saquarema. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec, 2004.

                                   Jeffrey D. Needell

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