Following the disarray of the educational system caused by the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759, education in Brazil took a new direction with the arrival of the Portuguese royal family. Upon his arrival in Brazil—specifically during his stop in Bahia—the Prince Regent, Dom João, opened the ports to friendly nations and established a course in Medicine and Surgery at the Military Hospital.

This proactive approach extended to the economic, political, and agricultural sectors, with a particular emphasis on education. Courses that had not previously existed were created across various fields. The medical program marked the beginning of a new era for public higher education, as, until then, higher education had been exclusively religious in nature. In this regard, Luiz Antônio Cunha (1986, p. 67), while analyzing higher education during the Imperial period (1822–1889), noted that the emergence of the National State in 1808 necessitated changes to the higher education system inherited from the colonial era. Consequently, "courses and academies were established to train state bureaucrats and specialists in the production of symbolic goods—with the training of liberal professionals serving as a byproduct." The arrival of King John VI (D. João VI) also facilitated the establishment of military academies, schools of law and medicine, the Royal Press (1808)—which enabled the dissemination and circulation of information and ideas, including political ones, among the literate population of the time—the Royal Library (1810, opened to the public in 1814), the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden (1810), and the National Museum (1818).

The first higher education courses in Brazil were created: Economics (1808), Advanced Mathematics (1809), Agriculture (1812), Chemistry (1817), History (1817), and Technical Drawing (1818). This represented a clear departure from the Jesuit model of education, which emphasized rhetoric. The primary focus at that time was the development of scientific knowledge tailored to local needs.

In addition to the medical program established in Bahia, a similar one was set up in Rio de Janeiro, where the royal court was based. Other educational initiatives followed. There was a recognized need to train military physicians, given the wartime context—with Napoleon dominating Europe, England being the sole exception. Driven by the same military imperatives, the Royal Military Academy and the Naval Academy were founded. Beyond formal courses and classes, a Public Library was established, incorporating books and scientific instruments—for physics and mathematics—brought from the Ajuda Library in Lisbon. In 1811, the Count of Arcos, for his part, established a Public Library in Bahia.

Some initiatives addressed vocational training. Also in Bahia, a decree dated February 23, 1808, established a chair in Economic Science. This subject was to be taught in Rio de Janeiro by José da Silva Lisboa—later the Viscount of Cairu—a proponent of Adam Smith’s classical liberalism and an expert in the field. ...economic [sphere]. In 1810, Dom Marcus de Noronha e Brito, 8th Count of Arcos and Governor of the Captaincy of Bahia, established the Aula de Comércio (School of Commerce) in Salvador—a place for the training of bookkeepers—and incorporated within it chairs for public instruction.

In 1817, Archduchess Leopoldina of Austria, upon arriving to marry Prince Dom Pedro I, brought with her scientists, travelers, and artists, thereby reinforcing the French Artistic Mission.

Concluding his reflections on the intellectual emancipation fostered by Dom João VI, Manuel de Oliveira Lima (1945, p. 262) offered a critical observation: the only project that failed was that of a university—an initiative cherished by the King, who even invited José Bonifácio to serve as its director. However, the proposal did not receive equal support from all his ministers, some of whom feared that its realization would undermine one of the very foundations upon which the metropole’s superiority rested—a resistance the author characterizes as persistent opposition.

Source(s):

.- Edivaldo M. Boaventura. A educação brasileira no período joanino ["Brazilian Education During the Joanine Period"]

I write a small Substack called The History Rabbit Hole, mostly because I enjoy digging into the nuanced, less-told parts of history and would rather have a real conversation about them than trade the usual one-line takes. I've been doing a series that starts with the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and follows what came after it. This is Part 4.
It covers the long slide from empire to republic. Brazil goes in 1822 and takes the money with it. In 1890 the British Ultimatum kills the Mapa Cor-de-Rosa, and Portugal backs down in public. The state goes bankrupt in 1892 and again in 1902, so the poverty is out in the open. On February 1, 1908, King Carlos I and his heir Luís Filipe are shot in the Terreiro do Paço. Two years later the monarchy is gone.
My argument is that none of these alone toppled the crown. What did it was how they stacked up, each one making the next humiliation harder for the monarchy to survive.
I'd really like to hear from people here who know this period better than I do. I'm especially interested in whether you'd weigh the Ultimatum or the bankruptcies more heavily, and how much you think the 1908 regicide was the cause of 1910 versus just a symptom.

How long did the shaking last? Did the sea rise or retreat first? Which way did the walls fall? Seismology didn't exist yet, but Lisbon was already collecting data.
Part 3 of my series on the 1755 earthquake covers that, plus Voltaire vs. Rousseau and why it took until the 2010s to explain where the quake came from. I write it because I enjoy the nuance

The quadrilheiros were police officers responsible for urban public security in Portugal from the Middle Ages until the early nineteenth century. Their primary mission was to arrest criminals and hand them over to the judicial authorities. In Brazil, the first quadrilheiros appeared during the period of the hereditary captaincies and were generally mercenaries.

The quadrilheiros were selected from among the local residents and appointed by judges and councilors meeting in the municipal council. They were required to serve for a period of three years.

Participation was compulsory for all men between the ages of 18 and 60, with the only exceptions being members of the clergy and the militias. Members received no pay, and training took place on Sundays and public holidays. In some cases, groups consisting of horsemen were formed, and their members trained together. The weapons normally used were arquebuses, crossbows, spears, and swords, all of which belonged to the members themselves.

During the early period of colonization, the Portuguese settlers’ main concern was the defense of the territory. The Charter of the Governors-General, granted by the king, gave these officials extensive powers to organize public administration. The defense of the territory and its population was a central theme of this body of regulations.

The basic idea was to arm the population so that people could protect themselves and defend the territory, as was also done in other Portuguese colonies. Tomé de Sousa arrived in Brazil with a First-Line Troop, the term used to designate the Portuguese land forces, consisting of 600 men.

Since this force was insufficient to guarantee the defense of the territory and the property of the Portuguese who had settled there, the population, believing itself authorized by Portuguese legislation—which was intended to protect Portugal’s interests—gradually began developing its own means of defense. Even before the governor’s arrival, the population had already sought ways to protect itself.

The first recorded effort in this direction took place in the town of São Vicente, in the state of São Paulo, on September 9, 1542, when the local municipal council decreed the creation of an ordenança, or local militia, composed of colonists and Indigenous people. Its purpose was to defend the town, which was threatened by attacks from pirates and hostile Indigenous groups.

In 1640, when the Kingdom of Portugal was restored, a reform of the army’s organization took place, and a force was created to support it. Each army regiment consisted of 3,000 men, while the units established to support the army had only 1,000 members. For this reason, they were called terços auxiliares, or auxiliary battalions. This type of organization existed in all Portuguese colonies. In 1796, by royal decree, the terços were renamed militia regiments. These were auxiliary forces supporting the regular army, known as the tropa de linha. They were organized into regiments based in freguesias—administrative districts within a city comprising several neighborhoods—and their commanders held the rank of colonel. Members were selected by their commanders within the respective districts, and service was compulsory and unpaid. Initially, militia officers were chosen by the population, but they were later appointed by the governors of the captaincies.

Militia training took place on weekends and public holidays, using weapons owned by the members themselves. Sometimes, the militias were organized according to social class or professional occupation, as occurred in Bahia, where they were known collectively as the Tropa Urbana, or Urban Troops.

They were divided into the following groups:

Úteis (Useful Men): Composed of merchants and shop assistants.

Henrique Dias: Made up of artisans and tavern keepers.

Capitão de Assalto (Assault Captain): Composed of freed Black men. Its mission included serving as messengers and assisting the regular army during wartime. In peacetime, its members were tasked with hunting down escaped slaves. These men were known as capitães do mato, or slave catchers.

The quadrilheiros institution declined during the eighteenth century, particularly in large cities, where it was no longer effective in combating crime. With the arrival of the Portuguese royal court in 1808, the Royal Police Guard was established.

The settlement of the royal family and its entourage, comprising approximately 12,000 people who arrived in Brazil in 1808, caused numerous conflicts between the population and the authorities, since many families were forced to surrender their homes to the government. To address this situation, the General Police Intendancy (Intendência Geral de Polícia) was established by the Royal Decree of May 10, 1808. It performed the same role as the institution of the same name established in Portugal in 1760. Its responsibilities included maintaining public order; managing urban spaces, including cleanliness, sanitation, and lighting; laying out the city’s streets; and ensuring the water supply.

The Intendancy also exercised judicial authority over offenses that threatened urban order, trying and punishing troublemakers, vagrants, escaped slaves, practitioners of capoeira, Romani people, and adventurers. In other words, in addition to maintaining public order, it also performed administrative functions that are now assigned to other government departments.

Paulo Fernandes Viana, a Portuguese law graduate from the University of Coimbra who had accompanied Dom João’s court to Brazil, was appointed General Police Intendant, a position he held until 1821. As can be inferred from the Intendancy’s responsibilities, its head combined duties that are now performed by mayors and secretaries of public security. To organize the city’s public security operations, the Royal Police Guard of the Court (Guarda Real de Polícia da Corte) was established as a militarized force under the command of José Maria Rabelo, a Portuguese official who had served in Portugal’s Police Intendancy.

However, the figure who stood out most in these activities was the Guard’s deputy commander, Major Miguel Nunes Vidigal. He had served in a militia regiment in Rio de Janeiro before being transferred to the army. Vidigal became notorious for the arbitrary manner in which he exercised his authority.

With the establishment of the General Police Intendancy, a public security institution controlled and funded by the government, an effective system of public security began to take shape in Brazil.

Source(s):

.- História Administrativa do Brasil [Administrative History of Brazil]. Preface by P. Calmon. Administrative Department of Public Service, Documentation Service. Hélio de Alcântara Avellar and Alfredo d’Escragnolle Taunay, 1965.

Part 1 left off with a king who couldn't go back inside a building, a capital on fire, and a country with no functioning government. Someone had to actually run Portugal.
That someone was a minor minister named Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo - a man almost nobody outside Portugal has heard of, who is about to become the most competent person you didn't know existed.

Churches packed and every altar lit with candles. The quake hit at 9:40 a.m. Survivors ran to the waterfront, watched the harbor drain, and then the sea came back. The overturned candles had already started fires that burned for days.
Wrote up the full day as Part 1 of a series:

https://thehistoryrabbithole.substack.com/p/things-you-didnt-know-changed-the-c60?utm_source=direct&r=80kp05&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

In June 1940, a Portuguese consul with eleven kids was told to stop signing visas. He kept signing for three days. Salazar spent the next fourteen years making him pay for it.

On March 17, 1560, a Portuguese military contingent led by the then Governor-General of Brazil, Mem de Sá, attacked and destroyed "Fort Coligny." Located on what is now Villegagnon Island (then known as Serijipe Island) in Rio de Janeiro, the fortification had been built by a group of French colonists led by Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon. They had named the region "France Antarctique" (1555–1560) in an attempt to establish a French colony in Brazil.

Alerted to the French presence in Rio de Janeiro, the Portuguese assembled a fleet of 26 warships to retake Guanabara Bay.

The Portuguese account of the confrontation comes from the writings of José de Anchieta, who was part of Mem de Sá's expedition. With a force of 120 Portuguese soldiers and the support of 140 Indian allies (Tupinambá and Temiminó) armed with arrows and traveling in canoes, they surrounded the island—where approximately 75 Frenchmen were entrenched, supported by about a thousand Tamoio warriors. They called upon the French colonists to surrender, but the latter refused. After a prolonged siege, a Portuguese sailor swam to the island and blew up the gunpowder magazine, forcing the French to abandon the fight and flee; most returned to France, while about 20 escaped to the mainland, taking refuge among allied indigenous settlements. The fortification thus captured (March 16) was razed, as Mem de Sá—hampered by damaged ships and a shortage of men—lacked the resources to establish a permanent settlement in Guanabara Bay; he returned to Salvador on April 3.

Despite being driven out of the city, the French did not abandon their efforts to conquer the site where Rio was founded. The two years following the Portuguese conquest were marked by intense attacks from the enemy. To assist the Captain-Major in maintaining control over the former France Antarctique region, a fleet from the Northeast, commanded by Cristóvão de Barros, arrived in Rio on January 20, 1567. This reinforcement proved crucial to the victories in the battles of Uruçumirim and Paranapuã Island, which were taking place at the time.

"The Bandeirantes—whose very name struck fear into Jesuit missions and Paraguayan towns—were the creators of a great nation. It is to them alone that Brazil owes the vast extent of its borders."

This comment by Argentine historian Enrique de Gandía highlights the significance of the Bandeirantes from São Paulo in the territorial expansion of Portuguese America during the 17th and 18th centuries.

The term derives from the Portuguese word bandeira (flag/banner), referring to a group of soldiers, a detached military unit, or a raiding party.

In medieval Portugal, a bandeira was a military unit of 36 soldiers. The Bandeirantes themselves did not use this term; instead, they used words such as entrada (incursion), jornada (journey), viagem (voyage), companhia (company), and descoberta (discovery)—and rarely, frota (fleet) or guerra (war). Writer Richard M. Morse dates the first use of bandeira to 1635 and bandeirante to 1740.

The Bandeirantes were also known as Paulistas and mamelucos. They hailed primarily from the São Paulo region—known as the Captaincy of São Vicente until 1709 and subsequently the Captaincy of São Paulo. The settlement of São Paulo served as the base for the most famous Bandeirantes.

The Bandeirantes were responsible for discovering mineral wealth and, alongside missionaries, for expanding Brazil's territory into the central and southern regions.

The settlement of São Paulo served as the base for the most famous Bandeirantes. Their leaders were first- and second-generation Portuguese descendants who had settled in São Paulo, yet the rank and file consisted largely of mamelucos (people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry) and Indigenous natives.

Although their initial goal was to capture and enslave Indigenous people, the Bandeirantes later began focusing their expeditions on the search for gold, silver, and diamond mines. By venturing into unmapped regions in search of profit and adventure, they expanded the effective borders of the Brazilian colony.

Through the bandeiras (expeditions), the Captaincy of São Vicente came to encompass the present-day states of Santa Catarina, Paraná, São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Goiás, part of Tocantins, and both the northern and southern parts of Mato Grosso—a region known as "Paulistânia," a cultural and geographic designation associated with the caipira people.

The bandeirantes were also responsible for unstable relations between the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, as they essentially waged an undeclared war against indigenous populations allied with Spain or the Jesuits.

With only a few peripheral Spanish settlements surviving and most Jesuit missions overrun, Portugal's de facto control over the majority of what is now the Southeast, South, and Center-West territory of Brazil was recognized by the Treaties of Madrid (1750) and San Ildefonso (1777).

In general, the patroness of the Bandeirantes was Our Lady of the Conception (Nossa Senhora da Conceição); indeed, under this invocation, there were 213 localities in Brazil at the time. The poverty of the Paulistas—their rusticity, sobriety, and indifference to comfort, along with their ill-fitting clothes and meager provisions—formed a striking contrast to their adventurous spirit. It was thanks to the Paulista drive that Spain lost Santa Catarina and the Jesuit missions of Uruguay (which had once extended as far as the Paranapanema River) and the Mato Grosso region (up to the Guaporé line); furthermore, it was by virtue of this occupation that, in 1750, Alexandre de Gusmão established the uti possidetis principle for boundary treaties in the Americas.

The backbone of the armies formed for Bandeirante expeditions and their incursions into the South and Center-West of Brazil was the Tupi Indian. Great chieftains such as Ibitiruçú, Maracanã, João Queimada de Albuquerque, and Paulo Joaquim José Ferreira guided the bandeirantes in their search for gold in the interior and in confronting enemy Indian groups.

In the 17th century, having lost hope regarding the East and regarding Brazil as its most valuable asset, Portugal successfully consolidated the expansion of the bandeirantes from São Paulo and secured their "discoveries" through a diplomatic framework built over the course of a century.

Source(s):

.- História da Civilização Brasileira by Pedro Calmon.

.- A Presença Indígena na Formação do Brasil by João Pacheco de Oliveira.

Pesquisando mais sobre a história do estado novo português vejo que salazar se aproveitou da influência brasileira na ONU para defender o colonialismo na África em 1955, mas pq o brasil mesmo já sendo soberano e independente não condenou o regime e preferiu servir de escudo para portugal???

On December 16, 1815, Brazil was elevated to the status of a kingdom, and Prince Regent Dom João became the sovereign of the United Kingdom of Portugal, the Algarve, and Brazil.

The United Kingdom oversaw the struggles against Artigas, the incorporation of Cisplatina, the Pernambucan Revolt of 1817, and Brazil's political emancipation between 1822 and 1825.

Brazil is represented on this flag by the golden armillary sphere set against a blue field—an element that later became part of the coat of arms of the Empire of Brazil. The golden armillary sphere was the personal symbol of King Dom Manuel I and represents Portuguese maritime expansion during the 15th and 16th centuries.

The symbols on the Portuguese Crown's shield include seven castles, representing the seven cities that Dom Afonso Henriques conquered from the Moors: Coimbra, Óbidos, Santarém, Lisbon, Palmela, Ourique, and Évora.

Prominent in the center are the five blue shields known as Quinas, symbolizing the five Moorish kings defeated by Dom Afonso Henriques; within these shields appear the Five Wounds of Christ, reflecting the fact that, from his very first flag, the King bore the Cross of Christ, symbolizing the Portuguese Kingdom's alliance with God.

The flag was created by the following law: "Dom João, I make known to all who see this Charter of Law: That, having seen fit to unite my Kingdoms of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarve so that together they might constitute—as they effectively do—one single Kingdom: I. That the Kingdom of Brazil shall bear as its Coat of Arms a golden armillary sphere on a blue field. II. That the Portuguese Royal Shield—inscribed within the said golden armillary sphere on a blue field and surmounted by a crown—shall henceforth be the Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarve, and of the other integral parts of my Monarchy. III. That these new Arms shall consequently be those uniformly employed on all standards, flags, royal seals, and coin dies, as well as on anything else where the previous Arms had hitherto been used. Thus, the flag of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarve was created.”

It was the last flag to fly in Brazil before Secession and Independence.

Currently, alongside other historical flags, the flag of the United Kingdom is considered one of Brazil's national symbols and is used in ceremonial parades.

In 1821—five years later—the Portuguese Constituent Cortes decreed that the flag's field should be blue and white, "as these were the colors of the shield of Afonso Henriques." The armillary sphere was removed from the design, as if the Constitutional flag no longer represented the United Kingdom.

One year after this flag was instituted, the "colors of the shield of Afonso Henriques"—worn as cockades on the military uniforms of Dom Pedro I and his honor guard—were torn off at Ipiranga Hill on the memorable 7th of September, 1822.