The history of Brazil’s disillusioned independence and memories of the Confederation of the Equator in João Soares Lisboa’s career

• Autor(a) principal: Ferreira, Paula Botafogo Caricchio
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Estudos Ibero-Americanos
• Texto Completo: https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/index.php/iberoamericana/article/view/41869
• topic: Independence of Brazil; Liberalism; Press; Confederation of the Equator; Independencia de Brasil; Liberalismo; Prensa; Confederación del Ecuador; Independência do Brasil; Liberalismo; Imprensa; Confederação do Equador

Based on the career of João Soares Lisboa, the only defendant “convicted of Republican collusion” by the first political devassa [inquiry to investigate criminal acts] in the Brazilian Empire, this article discusses how projects to build Brazil, which contended with the centralization in the government of Rio de Janeiro under the reign of the House of Bragança, were constructed and politically defeated. After being exiled from Brazil, Soares Lisboa went to Recife, where he joined the Confederation of the Equator (1824), and published the Desengano aos Brasileiros to “disillusion” his readers about the role of the House of Bragança in the history of Brazil’s independence. By reflecting in his Desengano upon the events, which led to the Brazilian independence, and upon the construction of the monarchical project for the Empire by the House of Bragança, Soares Lisboa divulged principles of other projects for the Brazilian State and nation that until then had been defeated and that he defended by advocating a “Monarcho-Democratic government” in the Correio do Rio de Janeiro from 1822 to 1823. He only reckoned it possible as a republic, as suggested by the ideologists behind the Confederation of the Equator (1824). In his Desengano, he contested the constitutionalism of D. Pedro I and D. João VI and described the nature of monarchs that conflicted with a government of freedom. These publications and his participation in the Confederation of the Equator impacted of the way João Soares Lisboa’s career is remembered in historical literature, which was used as a reference to characterize the radicalism of other figures of this period.