Everything about Pedro Ii Of Brazil totally explained
Pedro II,
KG (;
December 2,
1825 –
December 5,
1891) was the second and last
Emperor of Brazil. His name in full was
Pedro de Alcântara João Carlos Leopoldo Salvador Bibiano Francisco Xavier de Paula Leocádio Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga de Bragança e Habsburgo,
By the Grace of God and Unanimous Acclamation of the People, Constitutional Emperor and Perpetual Defender of Brazil.
When
anglicised, his name would be
Peter II of Brazil, full name
Peter of Alcantara John Charles Leopold Salvador Bibiano Francis Xavier of Paula Leocadio Michael Raphael Gonzaga of Braganza and Habsburg.
He was born on
December 2,
1825 in
Rio de Janeiro, the seventh son of Emperor
Pedro I of Brazil and Archduchess
Maria Leopoldina of Austria.
The Regency
When he was a boy of five, Pedro became the Emperor of Brazil. His father
Pedro I abdicated the Throne on
April 7,
1831, after violent protests in Brazil against his careless handling of internal affairs, to fight a
civil war in
Portugal. The aim of the war in Portugal was to restore the throne of Portugal to
Maria II, elder sister of Pedro II.
As a result of caring for his children's interests, in 1834, his father, Pedro I of Brazil (and Pedro IV of Portugal), had a daughter (who was only 15 years old) on the throne of Portugal and a son, Pedro II, who was Emperor of Brazil, at age 9.
During the Emperor's childhood, a series of
regents administered the government, in accordance with the Constitution. In 1840, the Brazilian Imperial Parliament, or General Assembly, abolished the regency and declared Pedro to be of age to govern. Though only 14, Pedro already had a reputation as a judicious ruler, and the Imperial Parliament hoped that his popularity would quell the regional revolts that had rocked Brazil in the 1830s. Emperor Pedro II was consecrated and crowned on July 18, 1841.
Family life
Dom Pedro II was married on
September 17,
1842 to Princess
Teresa of the Two Sicilies (1822–1889), the youngest daughter of King
Francis I of the Two Sicilies (1777–1830) and
Maria Isabella of Spain. (Pedro I'd been married to Leopoldina of Austria when he was Crown Prince of Portugal).
Pedro II and Teresa Cristina had four children:
Emperor of Brazil
Pedro II reigned as Emperor of Brazil for 49 years. The period saw the beginnings of industrialization, the first paved roads, the first steam-engine railway, a submarine telegraphy cable, and the introduction of the telephone. He traveled to the United States and attended the
Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, where
Alexander Graham Bell showed him his new
telephone. Pedro II probably was the first Brazilian to use the invention. He recited
Shakespeare's classic line from
Hamlet, "To be or not to be" into it, and exclaimed, "This thing speaks!".
Liberal in outlook, Pedro II took steps to end
slavery; the final abolition edict, the
Golden Law, was signed in his absence by his daughter
Princess Isabel, on
May 13,
1888. Pedro II also took pains to learn
Guarani, the most widely spoken indigenous language in nineteenth-century Brazil. He was widely respected by Brazilians of all social levels as an enlightened monarch who ruled in a principled, rational, moderate fashion. Historian
Thomas Skidmore has compared Pedro II to
Queen Victoria, another nineteenth-century monarch who was popular for similar reasons.
Though an enlightened monarch, Pedro II nonetheless retained extensive power over the Brazilian government. Under the
Brazilian Constitution of 1824, the Emperor possessed Poder Moderador (Moderating Power), for example the power to temper the will of Brazil's representative government. In practice, this meant that Pedro II had the right to veto legislation, dissolve the lower house of the legislature (the only one that was elected), and call new elections at his pleasure. Pedro II generally respected the wishes of the electorate, but his favoritism towards the Conservative party in 1868 marred his reputation for evenhandedness. The unexpectedly long and costly
Paraguayan War of 1865-1870 also diminished his popularity.
In the wake of the Paraguayan War, a war not started by Brazil, the monarchy was seen by some to be an obstacle to modernization and economic growth. Liberals called both for greater regional autonomy. The abolition of slavery in Brazil, the last place where it still existed in the Americas, irritated the wealthy elite. A military
coup d'etat on
November 15,
1889 overthrew the monarchy. The Emperor and his family went into exile in
Portugal, and Brazil created a new federalist, republican government under the
Brazilian Constitution of 1891.
Pedro II died on
December 5,
1891 in
Paris,
France. The government of France gave a state funeral to the old emperor. At the same time, the Brazilian Republic censored the details of Pedro's death and funeral.
His and his wife's remains were taken from Portugal to Brazil in 1922, and were reburied in
Petrópolis, their former summer residence, in 1939.
Ancestry
Books
Barman, Roderick J. Citizen Emperor: Pedro II and the Making of Brazil, 1825–1891. 1999.
Brown, Rose. American Emperor: Dom Pedro II of Brazil. 1945.
da Costa, Emilia Viotti. The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories. 2000; 1985.
Harding, Bertita. Amazon Throne. London: Harrap, 1942.
Schwarcz, Lilia Moritz. The Emperor's Beard: Dom Pedro II and His Tropical Monarchy in Brazil. Trans. John Gledson. 2003.
Skidmore, Thomas. Brazil: Five Centuries of Change. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.Further Information
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