Brazil Declares Independence from Portugal

In 1807, the Portuguese royal family escaped the French invasion of Portugal by relocating across the Atlantic Ocean to Rio de Janeiro. This wartime transfer elevated the colony's political stature, as the prince regent, the future King John VI, established the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in December 1815, placing Brazil on an equal constitutional footing with its European metropole. Brazil opened its ports to foreign commerce and developed core administrative bodies necessary to function as an autonomous state. However, following the 1820 Constitutionalist Revolution in Portugal, the monarch returned to Lisbon in April 1821, leaving his eldest son and heir, Prince Pedro of Braganza, to serve as regent in Rio de Janeiro.

Tensions escalated swiftly when the Portuguese constituent assembly, the Cortes, sought to dismantle the administrative autonomy Brazil had gained. The Cortes issued decrees subordinating provincial governments directly to Lisbon, dissolving local judicial bodies, and ordering Pedro to return to Europe as a mere military commander. In Brazil, prominent factions including the Bonifacians, guided by statesman Jose Bonifacio de Andrada, and the Liberals, led by Joaquim Goncalves Ledo, urged the prince to resist recolonization. Pedro openly defied Lisbon on 9 January 1822 by announcing his decision to stay. Soon after, he expelled insubordinate Portuguese troops stationed in Rio de Janeiro and convened a Brazilian constituent assembly.