Praieira Revolt

Praieira Revolt, Brazilian political movement in the northeastern province of Pernambuco. The revolt was led by the Praia, a faction of the Liberal Party named after the Rua da Praia, where the group's printing press was located. In 1842 this faction emerged when a schism developed between two politically powerful Pernambucan families. Comprising a group of urban professionals and some marginalized farmers from the interior, the Praia faction was supported in Rio de Janeiro by congressmen from Pernambuco. The Praia promoted land reform in the interior and access to employment opportunities then monopolized by Portuguese retailers, moneylenders, clerks, and artisans in the city of Recife. The revolt involved more than two thousand free farmers, former National Guard soldiers and police, artisans, and unemployed freemen. Slaves were not involved in the movement.

In its initial stages the Praieira revolt was led by planters protesting changes resulting from the replacement of the Liberal Party by the Conservatives in the imperial government on 19 September 1848. On the provincial level in Pernambuco, these changes brought back to power planters and their dependents whose policies were not compatible with those of the Praia faction, which had governed Pernambuco since 1845. The return of the Conservative Party to the central and provincial governments also led to a reshuffling of the police and National Guard as well as the replacement of Praia partisans in the provincial security forces by personal and political rivals. This not only cost many poor freemen their jobs but also set off a rearrangement of the local power structure in the province.

Many Praia supporters were indebted planters who, attracted by recent higher international prices for sugar, had converted from cotton to sugar production and were then adversely affected by the decline in international sugar prices that occurred in the mid-1840s. Other Praia supporters were unemployed skilled workers protesting Portuguese retailers and artisans who were monopolizing coveted positions in the commercial sector, thereby marginalizing the indigenous labor force in the process. In response to rescue appeals following the hostilities of the Brazilians against Portuguese citizens, known as the Mata Marinheiro street riots of 1847 and 1848, the Portuguese government sent ships to transport its citizens from Pernambuco to southern Angola, where they established a settlement in the port of Moçâmedes.

See alsoBrazil, Liberal Movements; Brazil, Political Parties: Liberal Party.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Nancy Priscilla Smith Naro, "The 1848 Praieira Revolt in Brazil" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1981).

Additional Bibliography

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

Beattie, Peter M. The Human Tradition in Modern Brazil. Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 2004.

Jancsó, István. Brasil: Formaçao do estado e da naçao. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec; Ijuí: Editora Unijuí; [São Paulo]: FAPESP, 2003.

Vainfas, Ronaldo. Dicionário do Brasil imperial, 1822–1889. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2002.

                             Nancy Priscilla Smith Naro