Republic, Vargas and the Generals

Rio de Janeiro, the morning of 15 November 1889.

A painting of the morning of 15 November 1889. Troops, field guns and horses stand drawn up in the square in front of the long yellow barracks that housed the army command in Rio de Janeiro, with smoke drifting across the ranks. Almost every figure in the frame is a soldier. That is what the picture teaches. The emperor's government was removed by the army, in a square most of the city had no reason to be standing in, and the whole thing was finished before lunch. Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

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Contents — 10 sections

OPENING SCENE
A REPUBLIC WITH A GATE AT THE DOOR
THE COUNTRY OUTSIDE THE COFFEE BELT
THE ARRANGEMENT STARTS TO CRACK
A REVOLUTION THAT WAS NOT ONE
CONGRESS IS CLOSED
THE DECADE THAT MADE THE LETTER
FIFTY YEARS IN FIVE
TWELVE DAYS IN 1964, AND THE ACT THAT SUSPENDED THE LAW
THE BILL, AND THE LONG EXIT

OPENING SCENE

Rio de Janeiro, the morning of 15 November 1889.

Troops under Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca ride into the square at Campo de Santana and occupy the war ministry. The cabinet resigns. A provisional government is proclaimed before most of the city knows anything has happened.

A journalist called Aristides Lobo watched it and wrote his dispatch the same day. A São Paulo paper printed it three days later.

The people, he wrote, watched the whole thing "bestializado, atônito, surpreso", stupefied and astonished and surprised, without knowing what it meant. Many of them, he said, believed they were watching a parade. Recent historians argue that the line understates how widely republican ideas had already circulated.

The imperial family was told to leave. Princess Isabel had signed the law ending slavery eighteen months earlier. She spoke the next day. "If abolition is the cause for this, I don't regret it; I consider it worth losing the throne for."

Her father was more tired than defiant. "If it is so," Pedro II said, "it will be my retirement. I have worked too hard and I am tired."

A flag went up over the new government that afternoon. It had stripes and a corner block of stars, and it looked very like the flag of the United States. It lasted four days.

What replaced it stayed. So did the men who owned the land, the crop the economy ran on, and the rule that kept most Brazilians out of the vote.

Over the ninety-six years that follow, Brazil changed what it sold twice. It went from coffee to steel and cars, and it built a capital in the middle of the country to prove it.

Today's Core Question: The country changed what it sold, twice. Why did that never change who owned it?

LOCKED AFTER THE PREVIEW

What's in the rest of Day 5

A REPUBLIC WITH A GATE AT THE DOOR
THE COUNTRY OUTSIDE THE COFFEE BELT
THE ARRANGEMENT STARTS TO CRACK
A REVOLUTION THAT WAS NOT ONE
CONGRESS IS CLOSED
THE DECADE THAT MADE THE LETTER
FIFTY YEARS IN FIVE
TWELVE DAYS IN 1964, AND THE ACT THAT SUSPENDED THE LAW
THE BILL, AND THE LONG EXIT

Tomorrow: 1986 to now. Brazil writes a constitution that promises, for the first time, to dismantle the structure the first five days describe, and then finds a seventh export cycle, sold mostly to China, to pay for the promise. Day 6 is about what that money bought, what it did not, and why both readings of the result use exactly the same numbers.

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Back Continue to Day 6

OPENING SCENE

Marshal Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca in the official photograph issued in 1889, wearing the orders the monarchy had given him. He had commanded troops in the Paraguayan War and been a personal friend of the emperor for years. As head of the provisional government he closed Congress himself on 3 November 1891, when it moved against him, and resigned three weeks later under threat of a naval revolt. He held the office for just over two years.Governo do Brasil / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Rio de Janeiro, the morning of 15 November 1889.

A journalist called Aristides Lobo watched it and wrote his dispatch the same day. A São Paulo paper printed it three days later.

Auguste Comte in a daguerreotype of 1849, eight years before he died in Paris. He coined the word sociology, and spent his last decade building a Religion of Humanity: a secular church with a calendar of thirteen months of twenty-eight days, each named for a figure from history. It found few followers in France. Its temples were built in Brazil instead. The Positivist Church of Brazil was founded in Rio in 1881 and its Temple of Humanity still stands there.Unknown author / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Her father was more tired than defiant. "If it is so," Pedro II said, "it will be my retirement. I have worked too hard and I am tired."

A flag went up over the new government that afternoon. It had stripes and a corner block of stars, and it looked very like the flag of the United States. It lasted four days.

What replaced it stayed. So did the men who owned the land, the crop the economy ran on, and the rule that kept most Brazilians out of the vote.

Over the ninety-six years that follow, Brazil changed what it sold twice. It went from coffee to steel and cars, and it built a capital in the middle of the country to prove it.

Today's Core Question: The country changed what it sold, twice. Why did that never change who owned it?

What's in the rest of Day 5

A REPUBLIC WITH A GATE AT THE DOOR

THE COUNTRY OUTSIDE THE COFFEE BELT

THE ARRANGEMENT STARTS TO CRACK

A REVOLUTION THAT WAS NOT ONE

CONGRESS IS CLOSED

THE DECADE THAT MADE THE LETTER

FIFTY YEARS IN FIVE

TWELVE DAYS IN 1964, AND THE ACT THAT SUSPENDED THE LAW

THE BILL, AND THE LONG EXIT