What was the Joanine Period?
The Joanine Period refers to the moment in the history of Brazilian colonization marked by the presence of the Portuguese royal family in Brazil. This specific period began in 1808, when the Portuguese Court and D. João VI arrived in Brazil, and lasted until 1821, when that king, pressured by the Portuguese courts, chose to return to Portugal. During this period, the Portuguese royal family inhabited the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Why did the Portuguese royal family move to Brazil?
The Portuguese royal family's move to Brazil was related to events in Europe during the Napoleonic Period. As a way to weaken England economically, Napoleon Bonaparte decreed the Continental Lock, which consisted in the prohibition of European nations to trade with England.
According to this policy established by Napoleon, nations that did not adhere to the blockade would be militarily invaded by French troops. Portugal did not accept joining this blockade, precisely because England was its greatest political and economic ally. To close this gap, Napoleon ordered the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 1807.
With the French invasion, Napoleon deposed the Spanish king and placed his brother, José Bonaparte, on the Spanish throne. During the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal, D. João VI chose to flee from the presence of French troops and, thus, embarked in a hurry with everything he could carry to Brazil. In this regard, the report by Boris Fausto follows:
Between 25 and 27 November 1807, about 10 to 15 thousand people boarded Portuguese ships heading for Brazil, under the protection of the English fleet. An entire bureaucratic apparatus came to the Colony: ministers, advisers, Supreme Court judges, treasury officials, army and navy ranks, members of the high clergy. Also followed were the royal treasury, government archives, a printing press and several libraries that would be the base of the National Library of Rio de Janeiro|1|.
The Portuguese expedition consisted of 46 vessels, which were escorted to the Brazilian coast by the British Navy. The trip was full of mishaps, like a storm that separated part of the ships, the lack of food because of the number of people and, according to historians, an outbreak of lice that forced women to shave their hair.
D. João VI and the entire Portuguese Court arrived in Brazil, in the region of Salvador, in January 1808. The following month, the Portuguese king embarked for the city of Rio de Janeiro, arriving in that city in March. From Rio de Janeiro, D. João VI would rule Portugal and Brazil until 1821, when he then returned to Europe.
What big changes took place with the arrival of D. João VI to Brazil?
As soon as he arrived in Brazil, D. João VI took the first measure of relevance: the opening of Brazilian ports to friendly nations. This happened on January 28, 1808, and started all the changes that were to come. The opening of Brazilian ports to friendly nations meant, in practice, that the only nation to benefit from this would be England, owner of a gigantic maritime trade.
This measure meant the end of the commercial monopoly exercised by Portugal over the economic activities of Brazil and it allowed Brazilian merchants and large landowners to negotiate directly with their foreign buyers. For Portugal, this measure was the result of an obvious need, since, with the French occupation, it would be impossible to trade with Portuguese ports.
Other important decisions made by D. João VI was the permission to install manufactures in Brazil and the creation of incentives for these manufactures to appear. Despite this measure being extremely important, manufactured goods produced in Brazil suffered from competition from English goods, which had better quality and an attractive price (Portugal taxed English goods at only 15% tax customs).
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By order of D. João VI, medical schools were developed in Salvador and Rio de Janeiro. In addition, museums, theaters and libraries were built, and the installation of a printing press in the city of Rio de Janeiro was allowed. All of this contributed to the growth of intellectualism in Brazil and allowed the circulation of ideas, especially in the capital.
This growth of intellectualism in Brazil ended up encouraging the arrival of notable foreign intellectuals and artists of that period, such as the trip of the French botanist and naturalist Auguste de Saint-Hilaire and the French Artistic Mission, which brought important French artists, with emphasis on Debret and his paintings about Rio de Janeiro.
However, the most important measure taken by D. João occurred in 1815, when Brazil was raised to the status of kingdom and, thus, the Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarves. This happened because the member nations of the Congress of Vienna they considered it unacceptable that a European king should be in a colony and not in his realm. In response, D. João VI took this step and made Brazil an integral part of the Portuguese kingdom.
In addition to allowing the economic and intellectual development of Rio de Janeiro, all these changes resulted in the population increase in the city of Rio de Janeiro, which went from 50,000 inhabitants in 1808, for 100,000 inhabitants in 1822.
How was the foreign policy of D. John during the Johannine Period?
While present in Brazil, D. John VI was directly involved in territorial issues with neighboring nations and neighboring territories dominated by foreign nations. First, there was the invasion of French Guiana, carried out in 1809. D. João VI ordered this occupation, together with English troops, as a reprisal for the French occupation of Portugal. The Portuguese presence in French Guiana extended until 1817, when this region was returned to France after Napoleon's defeat.
Another very important issue, and one that generated impacts in Brazil after independence, was the conflict over Cisplatin. By order of D. João VI, the Banda Oriental do Rio da Prata (now Uruguay) was invaded and annexed to Brazilian territory in 1811. Shortly thereafter, in 1816, wars were fought against José Artigas, who was fighting for Uruguay's independence.
How was the return of D. João VI to Portugal?
The return of the Portuguese Court to Portugal resulted from the pressures that D. João VI began to suffer from the Portuguese bourgeoisie from 1820 onwards. At that time, the Porto Liberal Revolution, in which the bourgeoisie formed the Portuguese courts (a kind of assembly) and began to demand changes in Portugal in accordance with the liberal and illustrated principles in vogue.
The Portuguese liberals wanted some changes to be implemented in order to recover the Portuguese economy. The main demands of the Portuguese courts were the Brazil's downgrading to colony status again it's the immediate return fromD. João VI to Portugal. These pressures exerted by the Portuguese courts forced the king to return out of fear of losing the Portuguese throne.
D. João VI returned to Portugal with approximately four thousand people in 1821, however, he left his son D. Peter, future D. Pedro I, as regent of Brazil. The tensions caused by the Portuguese courts with Brazil and D. Pedro created the rupture that started the process of independence in Brazil.
|1| FAUSTO, Boris. History of Brazil: São Paulo: Edusp, 2013, p. 105.
*Image credits: StockPhotosArt and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves
Graduated in History