Questões de Vestibular

  The crisis in the Portuguese Empire was already underway in 1807, with some underlying causes found further back in time. It created the conditions for the political split between Brazil and Portugal, a development that virtually nobody imagined at the start of the 19th century. The process that started in 1807 prompted the separation and defined its most lasting results: the emergence of a Brazilian state and nation that would consolidate itself over the next century preserving its distinctive features. The independence process was strongly marked by progressive distancing between the past and the future. In this sense, the self-proclaimed revolutionary nature of the independence process fits neatly into the broader political and intellectual context of the time, full of conceptual innovations.

  The continuity of Brazilian independence is, however, still the most common aspect highlighted by most historians and nonhistorians. It is true that the creation of the Empire of Brazil neither abolished slavery, nor upended social hierarchies for the vast majority of the population, nor modified the highly concentrated nature of land distribution and its overwhelming focus on sustaining an export economy built during centuries of Portuguese colonization. Yet, given the innovations involved in the creation of the Empire of Brazil and their significance in the first decades of the 19th century, the understanding of this history gains depth, complexity, and consistency if one replaces the simple and banal idea of preservation of slavery, social hierarchies, territoriality or monarchy with that of re-creation and reorganization of these elements. If not seen in this light, the history of Brazilian independence silences an array of diverse voices and actors who had been growing increasingly accustomed to participating in politics since the end of the previous century.

João Paulo Pimenta. Independence: Change and

Continuity. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin

American History. Internet:<www.oxfordre.com> (adapted).

  On May 13th, 1822, a group of 186 women sent Maria Leopoldina the Letter from the Bahian Women to Her Royal Highness Dona Leopoldina, congratulating her on her role in the patriotic rulings of her husband, Prince Regent Dom Pedro. The document acknowledged the contribution made by the then princess and empress-to-be to ensuring her husband’s permanence in Brazil, which they believed was a key factor in gaining independence from Portugal. “Far more than just a letter, it is a political manifesto,” notes historian Maria de Lourdes Viana Lyra. “At that time, in Brazil, women were given a subordinate role restricted to private household and family affairs. Outside the domestic sphere, women were made invisible, but that did not stop them from mobilizing politically to fight for independence in a variety of ways,” she states.

  In addition to isolated actions led by famous figures, there were other many significant actions that are still largely unknown to the general public, more specifically, those related to instances of collective mobilization of women active in the public arena during the fight for Brazilian independence. Historian Andréa Slemian expands on the matter. “Throughout this process, many women expressed themselves through letters, manifestos, and other texts. Thus, the nascent press in Brazil played an important role, not only by publishing these women’s ideas regarding independence on editorial pages, for example, but also by serving as a mouthpiece for views supporting women’s rights,” notes Slemian.

Ana Paula Orlandi. Unafraid to fight.

Internet: :<www.revistapesquisa.fapesp.br> (adapted).