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Political Elites and State Building: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

José Murilo de Carvalho
José Murilo de Carvalho
Affiliation:
Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London
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Extract

The process whereby political independence came to the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in America has been the object of a rich body of scholarly interpretation. Although most of this literature concentrates on the causes of independence, several authors, particularly those concerned with the Brazilian case, have tried to explain also the reasons for the differences in the political evolution of the two colonial empires. Without denying the value of some of these explanations, this essay argues that they are not entirely satisfactory and that an alternative, or at least supplementary, explanation can be found in the nature of the political elites that emerged in the two colonies as a consequence of differing colonial policies.

Type
State Making
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , July 1982 , pp. 378 - 399
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1982

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References

This paper was written while I was in Princeton as a member of The Institute for Advanced Study, whose support is greatly appreciated. I benefitted from comments by several members of the Institute, particularly Clifford Geertz and John H. Elliott. I am also grateful to Raymond Grew for his suggestions.

1 Many of the arguments and data presented here were developed in connection with the research done for my Ph.D. dissertation, “Elite and State-Building in Imperial Brazil” (Stanford University, 1975)Google Scholar, and, in Brazil, , A Construção da Ordem: A Elite Politico Imperial (Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 1980).Google Scholar

2 Furtado, Celso, Economic Development of Latin America. A Survey from Colonial Times to the Cuban Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 13–18.Google Scholar On the decadence of the mining economy, see, for instance, Maxwell, Kenneth R., Conflicts and Conspiracies: Brazil and Portugal, 1750–1808 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Caio Prado, Jr., recognizes that the bulk of colonial commerce was done with the metropolis. The only internal commercial link that, according to him, had some impact in terms of unifying parts of the colony was provided by the cattle trade. See Prado, Caio Jr., The Colonial Background of Modern Brazil (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), 271–72.Google Scholar

3 Sunkel, Osvaldo and Paz, Pedro, El Subdesarrollo Latino-Americano y la Teoria del Desarrollo (México city: Siglo XXI, 1970), 275–343Google Scholar, esp. 300, 328.

4 See Lima, Hermes, Notas a Vida Brasileira (Sao Paulo: Brasiliense, 1945), 8–10, 136–40.Google Scholar For a similar view, see Costa, Emilia Viotti da, “The Political Emancipation of Brazil,” in From Colony to Nation, Essays on the Independence of Brazil, Russell-Wood, A. J. R., ed. (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 70.Google Scholar A different view, arguing that slavery was favored by political decentralization, is presented by Lima, Manoel de Oliveira, The Evolution of Brazil Compared with That of Spanish and Anglo-Saxon America (Stanford: Stanford University Publications, 1914), 51–52.Google Scholar

5 This was particularly the case of a frustrated rebellion that took place in Bahia in 1798. Several slaves were involved in it, and twenty-four of the thirty-four people indicted were either blacks or mulattos. See Ruy, Affonso, A Primeira Revoluçāo Social Brasileira (1798) (Rio de Janeiro: Laemmert, 1970), 114–17.Google Scholar The position of the Banian elite is described in Kennedy, John Norman, “Bahian Elites, 1750–1822,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 53 (08 1973), 415–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 On José Bonifácio, see de Souza, Octávio Tarquínio, José Bonifácio, 1773–1838 (Rio de Janeiro: J. Olympio, 1945).Google Scholar See also Bethell, Leslie, The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 42–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The idea of transforming the former colony into a “great nation,” in a “vast empire,” was almost an obsession among many leaders of the independence movement, as the minutes of the first Council of State, created in 1822, well indicate. One councillor, comparing D. Pedro to the Roman emperors, declared that it would be “the greatest pleasure of my life to see Brazil, from the Amazon to the Prata, united in one single kingdom.” See Federal, Senado, Atas do Conselho de Estado, Rodrigues, José Honório, ed. (Brasilia: Senado Federal, 1973), I, 23.Google Scholar

7 See Haring, C. H., The Spanish Empire in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), 137Google Scholar; and also Phelan, John Leddy, The Kingdom of Quito in the Seventeenth Century. Bureaucratic Politics in the Spanish Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), 122–23.Google Scholar

8 For case studies on the relationships of colonial administrators among themselves and with the metropolis, see Alden, Dauril, Royal Government in Colonial Brazil with Special Reference to the Administration of the Marquis of Lavradio, Viceroy, 1769–1779 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968), esp. ch. 16Google Scholar; and Phelan, , Kingdom of Quito, esp. pt. II.Google Scholar A recent argument in favor of a basically similar tradition can be found in Veliz, Claudio, The Centralist Tradition of Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 The introduction of the more aggressive intendentes (intendents) during the Bourbon period, as substitutes for the corregidores (district magistrates), together with the continuing exclusion of Creoles, might have had the unintended effect of spurring local government represented by the cabildos (municipal councils). This was, according to Lynch, John, what happened in the Rio de la Plata viceroyalty. See his “The Crisis of Colonial Administration,” in The Origins of the Latin American Revolutions, 1808–1826, Humphreys, R. A. and Lynch, John, eds. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 122–23.Google Scholar

10 Quoted in Prado, J. F. de Almeida, D. Joāo VI eo Inīcio da Classe Dirigente do Brasil (Sāo Paulo: Ed. Nacional, 1968), 134.Google Scholar The same view can be found in Silva, J. M. Pereira da, História da Fundaçāo do Imp´erio Brazileiro (Rio de Janeiro: B. L. Gamier, 1864), 135Google Scholar; Handelman, Henrique, História do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: RIHGB, 1930), 710Google Scholar; Costa, Viotti da, “Political Emancipation,” 66, and others.Google Scholar

11 See Silva, Pereira da, História da Fundaçdo, 275Google Scholar; Haring, C. H., Empire in Brazil. A New World Experiment with Democracy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 23–24Google Scholar; Armitage, John, The History of Brazil from … 1808 to … 1831 (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1836), II, 138Google Scholar; Monteiro, Tobias, História do Imperio. A Elaboracfio da Independencia (Rio de Janeiro: F. Briguiet e Cia., 1927), 851Google Scholar; de Varnhagen, Francisco Adolfo, História da Indêpendencia do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1917), 349–50.Google Scholar

12 See Villanueva, Carlos A., La Monarquia en America. Bolivar y el General San Martin (Paris: Libreria Paul Ollendorff, 1911), esp. 235–51. According to Villaneuva, besides Mexico and San Martin's Argentina, the idea of a monarchy occurred also to elements of the elite in Venezuela, Chile, Peru, and Colombia.Google Scholar

13 It is interesting to observe that the Spanish American countries served as a negative example for the Brazilian elite. During the difficult years of the regency, 1831–40, troubled by constant rebellions, some of which with secessionist and republican tendencies, it was common for members of the national elite, liberals and conservatives alike, to insist on the maintenance of the monarchy as a way of preventing the evils of fragmentation and internal struggle that had befallen Brazil's neighbors.

14 Not by coincidence, the most specific and detailed study available deals with the Chilean elite, the most homogeneous of the Spanish-speaking countries. See Vives, Alberto Edwards, La Fronda Aristocrática en Chile (Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Ercilla, 1936).Google Scholar Other useful works include Halperin-Donghi, Tulio, Revolutión y Guerra. Formación de una Elite Dirigente en la Argentina Criolla (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno, 1972)Google Scholar; Gilmore, Robert G., Caudillism and Militarism in Venezuela (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Brading, D. A., “Government and Elite in Late Colonial Mexico, ” Hispanic American Historical Review, 53 (08 1973), 389–414CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lipset, Seymour Martin and Solan, Aldo, eds., Elites in Latin America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967).Google Scholar

15 Quoted in Lacombe, Américo Jacobina, “A Igreja no Brasil Colonial,” in História Geral da Civilização Brasileira, de Holanda, Sérgio Buarque, ed. (Sāo Paulo: Difel, 1965–1972), Tomo I, vol. II, 72.Google Scholar

16 See Morais, Francisco, “Estudantes Brasileiros na Universidade de Coimbra (1772–1872),” Anais da Biblioteca National do Rio de Janeiro, 62 (1940), 137–335.Google Scholar

17 I am defining as the national political elite the persons who occupied the top positions in the political system. The core of this elite was formed by cabinet ministers, state councillors, and senators, a total of 342 persons. A total of 1,027 deputies, who served in ten legislatures, were also considered, although in less depth due to the greater difficulty in finding information on them. State councillors were appointed for life by the emperor and in good part overlapped with ministers and senators. Senators were elected but also held a life tenure. Deputies were elected for a four-year term. For the sake of simplicity, I will present complete data only for ministers. There are no major variations for the rest. A parallel work independent of this study arrived at somewhat similar conclusions about the nature of the Brazilian elite: see Pang, Eul-Soo and Seckinger, Ron L., ”The Mandarins of Imperial Brazil,“ Comparative Studies in Society and History, 14:2 (1972), 215–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The importance of juridical training was also stressed by Roderick, and Barman, Jean, ”The Role of the Law Graduate in the Political Elite of Imperial Brazil,” Journal of Inter-American Studies and World Affairs, 18 (11 1976), 432–49.Google Scholar

18 On the colonial universities, see Lanning, John Tate, Academic Culture in the Spanish Colonies (Folcroft: The Folcroft Press, 1969), 3–33Google Scholar, and Arciniegas, German, Latin America, a Cultural History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 151–52. Arciniegas lists twenty-five universities, which Lanning reduced to twenty-three, arguing that some were counted twice because of their transformation from minor to major universities.Google Scholar

19 Lanning, , Academic Culture, 53.Google Scholar

20 For a history of the University of Coimbra, see Brago, Teófilo, História da Universidade de Coimbra nas suas Relaçóes com a Instrucfio Publica Portuguesa, 4 vols. (Lisboa: Tip. da Academia Real das Ciencias, 1892–1902).Google Scholar

21 On Pombal's effort to revitalize the Portuguese and colonial economies, see Maxwell, , Conflicts and Conspiracies, esp. chs. 1,2.Google Scholar On his eucational reforms, see de Carvalho, Laerte Ramos, As Reformat Pombalinas da Instruçāo Püblica (Sāo Paulo: USP, 1952).Google Scholar The activity of the reform generation in Brazil was studied in Maxwell, Kenneth R., “The Generation of the 1790s and the Idea of Luso-Brazilian Empire,” in Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil, Alden, Dauril, ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). 107–44Google Scholar; and in Dias, Maria Odila da Silva, “Aspectos da Ilustrac, ao no Brasil,” Revista do InstitutoHistorico e Geográfico Brasileiro, 278 (01–03 1968), 105–70.Google Scholar

22 Braga, , História da Universidade, I, 126.Google Scholar On the general influence of Roman law and its instrumental part in strengthening the authority of the kings, see Wolff, Hans Julius, Roman Law. An Historical Introduction (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967), ch. 7.Google Scholar Its influence and the role of university-trained jurists is also stressed by Max Weber. See Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. Wright, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 93.Google Scholar For a demonstration of a more diversified use of Roman law during the period of emergence of the modern state, see Gilmore, Myron Piper, Argument from Roman Law in Political Thought, 1200–1600 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941).Google Scholar The influence of Roman law, particularly the jus civile, on the Brazilian legislation, is described in Davidson, Theresa Sherrer, “The Brazilian Inheritance of Roman Law,” in Watson, James B. et al. , Brazil: Papers Presented in the Institute for Brazilian Studies, Vanderbilt University, (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1953), 59–90.Google Scholar

23 See Cabral de Moncada, Um “Iluminista” Português do Século XVIII: Luis Antônio Verney, quoted in de Carvalho, L. R., As Reformas Pombalinas, 26–27.Google Scholar Even Pombal's reform did not go so far as to accept authors such as Rousseau and Voltaire. It remained politically conservative, in line with the authoritarian views of the marquis. Many of the scientists trained under the influence of the reform were sent to Brazil, commissioned by the crown to explore the economic potentialities of the colony. The captaincy of Minas Gerais alone, rich in mineral resources, had thirty-four such scientists holding public office at the end of the colonial period. See Carrato, José Ferreira, Igreja, Huminismo e Escolas Mineiras Coloniais (Sāo Paulo: Ed. Nacional, 1968), 240–45.Google Scholar

24 See Frieiro, Eduardo, O Diabo na Livraria do Cônego (Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia, 1957)Google Scholar, and also Marchant, Alexander, “Aspects of the Enlightenment in Brazil,” in Latin American Enlightenment, Arthur Whitaker, P., ed. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1961), 95–118.Google Scholar The more progressive aspects of the activities of intellectuals in the colony are stressed in Burns, E. Bradford, “The Intellectuals as Agents of Change and the Independence of Brazil, 1724–1882,” in From Colony to Nation, Russell-Wood, ed., 211–46.Google Scholar Many of the more radical intellectuals, though, were priests or had been trained in France or England. Particularly active were physicians trained in France at Montpellier.

25 See Lanning, , Academic Culture, 18, 33.Google Scholar For the general impact of the Catholic Church, see Greenleaf, Richard E., The Roman Catholic Church in Colonial Latin America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971)Google Scholar. On the influence of the Enlightenment in Latin America in general, see Whitaker, , ed., Latin American Enlightenment.Google Scholar

26 Schwartz, Stuart B., Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil: The High Court ofBahia and Its Judges, 1961–1751 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973).Google Scholar By the same author, see “Magistracy and Society in Colonial Brazil,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 50 (11 1970), 715–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 See Phelan, , Kingdom of Quito, 119–46.Google Scholar

28 A selection of texts on the conflicts between Creoles and peninsulares can be found in Humphreys and Lynch, eds., Origins, pt. VII. M. A. Burkholder and D. S. Chandler challenge the traditional view of the exclusion of Creoles in their study of audiencia appointments. But they recognize that after 1776 discrimination against the American born increased. See Burkholder, M. A. and Chandler, D. S., “Creole Appointments and the Sale of Audiencia Positions in the Spanish Empire under the Early Bourbons, 1701–1750,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 4 (11 1972), 187–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 In a recent book, Jorge I. Dominguez, after discarding several possible explanations for the political evolution of the Spanish colonies, also stresses the nature of the relationships between elite groups and the government as an explanatory factor, concentrating on the cases of Chile, Mexico, Cuba, and Venezuela. The difference from my approach is that he is dealing not only with the political elite, but primarily with the economic and local elites, and he does not give particular emphasis to socialization factors. The specificity of the Brazilian case, it seems to me, was exactly the presence of a national political elite, that is, of an elite that could aggregate the interests of the dominant groups and protect them through the mediation of the state power. See Dominguez, Jorge I., Insurrection or Loyalty. The Breakdown of the Spanish American Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 See de Carvalho, J. M., A Construqdo, 145.Google Scholar

31 On the miiitary, see Schulz, John Henry, “Brazilian Army and Politics, 1850–1894” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1973).Google Scholar

32 Martins, Oliveira, História de Portugal (Lisboa: Guimarães Editores, 1968), 158.Google Scholar

33 On the economic evolution of Portugal, see de Azevedo, Joao Lucio, Épocas de Portugal Econômico (Lisboa: Livraria Clássica Ed., 1973).Google Scholar The development of a powerful bureaucratic stratum is described in Faoro, Raymundo, Os Donos do Poder. Formaçao do Patronato Político Brasileiro (Porto Alegre: Globo, 1958), chs. 1–3.Google Scholar

34 See de Carvalho, J. M., A Construçāo, 138. At the time, the House had 77 members who held law degrees in a total of 113 members. Of the 77, there were 43 judges, and several others were also public employees.Google Scholar

35 Nabuco, Joaquim, Abolitionism: The Brazilian Antislavery Struggle, Conrad, Robert, ed. and trans. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977, 128.Google Scholar

36 For the first view, Faoro, , Os Donos do Poder, 262Google Scholar; for the second, Duarte, Nestor, A Ordem Privada e a Organização Political Nacional (Sã;o Paulo: Ed. Nacional, 1939).Google Scholar On the concept of stateful societies, see Nettl, J. P., “The State as a Conceptual Variable,” World Politics, 20 (07 1968), 559–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 The vote in the House showed a combination of political and economic pressures. Public employees voted overwhelmingly for the measure, but most of them came from the northern and northeastern parts of the country where the importance of slave labor was becoming less pressing because of the lack of economic dynamism. The south had fewer public employees among its representatives, and its growing coffee economy depended heavily on its slave workforce. Southern representatives voted overwhelmingly against the measure. See de Carvalho, J. M., “Elite and State-Building,” 329–39.Google Scholar

38 For an elaborate analysis of the compromises between the central government and local power elites using the Weberian notion of patrimonial bureaucracy, see Uricoechea, Fernando, The Patrimonial Foundations of the Brazilian Bureaucratic State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).Google Scholar

39 See Pareto, Vilfredo, Sociological Writings, selected and introduced by Finer, S. E. (London: Pall Mall Press, 1966), 51–71Google Scholar; and Mosca, Gaetano, The Ruling Class (New York and London: McGraw-Hill, 1939), ch. 2.Google Scholar

40 On the Chinese literati, see Chang, Chung-li, The Chinese Gentry. Studies in Their Role in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1970).Google Scholar An interesting, although somewhat overdrawn, comparison between the Chinese mandarins and the Brazilian elite can be found in Pang, and Seckinger, , “Mandarins of Imperial Brazil,” 215–44.Google Scholar On revolutionary elites, see Lasswell, Harold D. and Lerner, Daniel, eds., World Revolutionary Elites: Studies in Coercive Ideological Movements (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1966)Google Scholar; and Scalapino, Robert A., Elites in the People's Republic of China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972).Google Scholar

41 The debate involved sociologists and political scientists. For a critical evaluation, see Walton, John, “Discipline, Method, and Community Power: A Note on the Sociology of Knowledge,” American Political Science Review, 52 (06 1958), 463–569.Google Scholar

42 See Guttsman, W. L., The British Political Elite (London: Macgibbon & Kee, 1963), 151–58.Google Scholar

43 See Vives, , La Fronda Aristocrática, 15et passim.Google Scholar

44 As mentioned, data on the social origin of the elite are extremely scarce and not very reliable. According to the information I could gather, around 50 percent of the elite had some sort of connection either with the landed or the commercial upper classes. The actual figure was probably higher. One sector of the elite that presented a clear change in its recruitment pattern was the military. From a more aristocratic origin at the beginning of the empire, the military elite began to recruit more and more from lower-middle sectors and from their own ranks. See de Carvalho, J. M., A Construqao, 86–89.Google Scholar

45 Conflicts among sectors of the dominant classes in some Spanish-speaking countries are described by Dominguez, Insurrection or Loyalty. In Brazil, landowners were involved in the rebellions of 1789, 1817, 1824, and 1848; they were the major actors of one republican rebellion that lasted from 1835 to 1845 in the south, and of two rebellions in 1842 that involved two of the most important provinces close to the capital of the empire. When basic issues, such as slavery or land property, were debated in Congress, conflicts of the interests of different sectors of the upper classes became always apparent.

46 On China, see Scalapino, Elites in the People's Republic of China. An interesting negative example of the importance of socialization is provided by a study of the Algerian elite. According to this study, different political experiences, and not social or ethnic differences among the various sectors of the elite, accounted for the difficulties in establishing a stable political system. See Quandt, William B., “The Algerian Political Elite, 1954–1967” (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1968).Google Scholar

47 On the Prussian elite, see Rosenberg, Hans, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy, and Autocracy: The Prussian Experience, 1660–1815 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958).Google Scholar On the elite, Turkish, Frey, Frederick W., The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press, 1965). There is a striking similarity between the Brazilian imperial elite and the Turkish elite of the period between 1920 and 1954 in terms of education and occupational distribution. According to Frey, the consolidation of the Turkish state under Mustafa Kemal was achieved by an elite heavily dominated by bureaucratic elements.Google Scholar

48 Lenin, V. I., What Is To Be Done? S. V. and Patricia Utechin, trans. (London: Clarendon Press, 1963), 152–53.Google Scholar

49 On the role of elites in conservative modernization, see Rosenberg for the Prussian case. The Meiji reform and the Ataturk revolution were analyzed by Timberger, Ellen Kay in “A Theory of Elite Revolutions,” Studies in Comparative International Development, 7 (Autumn 1972), 191–207.Google Scholar