The Pereira de Vasconcelos's, the regress (return) and the construction of the Brazilian national state (1837-1840)

• Grant number: 20/04701-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: February 01, 2021
• End date: July 27, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: João Paulo Garrido Pimenta
• Grantee: Kelly Eleutério Machado Oliveira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 22/14571-9 - The Vasconcelos brothers, the miguelista counter-revolution and the relations between Brazil and Portugal (1826-1834), BE.EP.PD

Abstract

A a result of my doctoral thesis, in which the objective was to study the constitution of the intermediate powers in the political organization of the Brazilian State in the 19th century, this project intends to study the "return" in Brazil (1837- 1840) - with the help of the connected history methodology - from the trajectory of the three sons of Diogo Pereira Ribeiro de Vasconcelos: Bernardo, Jerônimo and Francisco. The "return" was a political system characterized by the maintenance of slavery, trafficking and political centralization. Bernardo Pereira was a politician whose biography was portrayed by Salomão de Vasconcelos (1953), Otávio Tarquínio de Sousa (1960), José Murilo de Carvalho (1999) and many others, had a decisive political participation in issues related to the Brazilian nation, such as slavery and trafficking. Their brother, Francisco Diogo, whose trajectory is little known, helped the latter to consolidate the conservative return policy by electing himself deputy of the Provincial Assembly of Minas Gerais, which was the province with the largest number of slaves in the 19th century in Brazil. The trajectory of military officer Jerônimo Pereira de Vasconcelos who moved to Coimbra at the beginning of the 19th century is also little known. It interests us to the extent that it will allow us to establish the limits between the "return" to Brazil and the miguelist counter-revolution in Portugal. His involvement in the conflicts that opposed D. Miguel also indicates the persistence of bonds that united Brazil and Portugal even after the independence of the former Portuguese colony of America. Finally, studying the "return" raises another equally relevant question: how did the defenders of the "return" understand the role of the provinces of Brazil's Empire and the institutions of intermediate power that represented it, like the Provincial Assemblies?