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The Praieira revolt, also known as the Beach rebellion, was a movement in the Pernambuco province of the Empire of Brazil that lasted from 1848 to 1849. The revolt, influenced by revolutions taking place in Europe, was due in part to unresolved conflicts left over from the Regency period and local resistance to the consolidation of the Empire of Brazil that had been proclaimed in 1822. The movement was led by radical elements of the Liberal Party of Pernambuco against the ruling Conservatives.
The Conservatives were in power between 1841 and 1845. The Liberals were returned to power once again in 1845 to form a cabinet, and managed to enact several programs: a protectionist tariff (1844), electoral reforms that extended suffrage and reduced the number of electors (1846), and the creation of a new office, president of the Council of Ministers (1847). This last act facilitated parliamentary procedure, contributed to the power of the cabinet, and consequently extended the authority of the imperial government.
The revolt was a culmination of mounting conflicts between Liberals and Conservatives that escalated with the end of the Ragamuffin War in 1845. Under the unreformed colonial social structure that remained from the 18th century, a small group of landowners in the influential province of Pernambuco controlled most of the workable land and preferred to concentrate on agricultural products for export. Since Brazilian economy was based on slavery and sugar, the long depression in the world sugar market aggravated social and racial ills in the 1840s.
In this feudal atmosphere of enforced silence, the editor of the short-lived journal O Progresso (1846–1848), Antônio Pedro de Figueiredo, spoke out for half of the province's population that were "vassals under the yoke" and declared that "the division of our soil in grand properties is the source of the major part of our ills." Another contemporary observer maintained that the Cavalcanti family owned one third of Pernambuco's sugar plantations (engenhos).Graham, Richard (1994). Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil. Stanford University Press. p. 127. Cavalcante was head of the Conservative Party in Pernambuco and a network of kinship ties extended the family's power. A popular saying of the time went:
which translates approximately as:
The key to this saying is the witty Portuguese pun between Cavalcante (a rich family of Pernambuco, but also horse rider, mounter) and cavalgado (ridden, mounted).
The breaking point was the appointment by the Emperor of a new Conservative cabinet led by Pedro de Araújo Lima.Graham (1994), p. 170. A rebellion against the new provincial government, initiated by the "praieiros" in Olinda, began on November 7, 1848 and spread rapidly through the state.Thomson, Guy P. C. (2002). The European revolutions of 1848 and the Americas. Institute of Latin American Studies. p. 113. A "Manifesto to the World" calling for free and universal voting rights, freedom of the press, federalism and the end of the "Poder Moderador" (the Moderating Power – the supremacy of the emperor over the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of the government that was instituted in the Brazilian Constitution of 1824), was on January 1, 1849. However, with only 2500 combatants, the movement quickly collapsed and was dispersed by the government forces. Other similar provincial movements swiftly followed suit.
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