Praieira revolt
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In Brazil, the "Praieira" revolt revolt was a movement in Pernambuco that lasted from 1848 to 1852. Remaining unresolved conflicts from the period of the Regency and local resistance to the consolidation of the Brazilian Empire that had been proclaimed in 1822 helped to breed the seed of the revolt.
Background
The Praieira revolt was the Brazilian response to a series of revolution that was playing out concurrently in Europe. The Revolution of 1848, even though with little permanent liberalizing effect, and the successful February revolution in France were opening a vista of a better life for ordinary people and striking a responsive chord to the Brazilians. The journalist-politician José Tomás Nabuco de Araújo recorded that "the proclamation of the republic in France shook our political world to its depths."
socialist writers like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Charles Fourier, who were being read in Brazil, and the Englishman Robert Owen, who wasn't, were also responsible for instilling inspiration to the Brazilians.
The Conservatives were in power between 1841 and 1845. The Liberals were returned to power once again in 1845 to form a ministry and managed to pass several party programs: a protectionist tariff (1844), electoral reforms that extended suffrage and reduced the number of electors (1846), creation of a new office, president of the Council of Ministers (1847). This last act facilitated parliamentary procedure, contributed to the power of the Ministry, and consequently extended the authority of the imperial government.
Event
The principal event occurred near the journal Diário Novo ("New Journal") which is located on the Praia Street (Beach Street) in Recife, Pernambuco's principal port. The radical wing of the Liberal Party of that state, also known as the "praieiros", met regularly in the premises of Diário Novo. They were committed to removing the provincial governor Antônio Chicorro da Gama, the powerful entrenched Pernambucan aristocracy who is linked to the Conservatives and also known as the enemy of the "guabirus",
The revolt was a culmination of mounting conflicts between Liberals and Conservatives that escalated with the end of Farroupilha in 1845. Under the unreformed colonial social structure inherited from the 18th century, a small group of landowners, in the influential province of Pernambuco, controlled most of the workable land and preferred to concentrate on agricultural products for export. Since Brazilian economy was based on slavery and sugar, the long depression in the world sugar market was aggravating social and racial ills in the 1840s.
In this feudal atmosphere of enforced silence, the editor of the short-lived journal O Progresso (1846 - 1848), Antônio Pedro de Figueiredo, spoke out for half of the province's population that were "vassals under the yoke" and declared that "the division of our soil in grand properties is the source of the major part of our ills." Another contemporary observer maintained that the Cavalcanti family owned one out of three of Pernambuco's sugar factories (engenhos). Cavalcante was head of the Conservative Party in Pernambuco and a network of kinship ties extended the family's power. There is a popular saying at that time that goes like this:
- Quem viver em Pernambuco,
- Deve estar desenganado.
- Ou há de ser Cavalcante,
- Ou há de ser cavalgado.’
which translated approximately as:
- Who lives in Pernambuco,
- Should be undeceived.
- He will be a Cavalcante,
- Or he will be mounted.’
The key to this saying is the witty play on a Portuguese pun between Cavalcante (horse rider, mounter) and cavalgado (rided, mounted).
A rebellion against the new provincial government, initiated by the "praieiros" in Olinda, was rapidly spreading through the province. A "Manifest to the World" calling for free and universal voting rights, freedom of the press, federalism and the end of the "Poder Moderador”, was promulgated the following year. However, with only 2500 combatants, the movement quickly collapsed and was dispersed by the government forces. Other similar provincial movements swiftly collapsed.