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Lucia Maria Bastos Pereira das Neves The forgotten in the independence process: a history to be made

Almanack, Guarulhos, n. 25, ef00220, 2020 http://doi.org/10.1590/2236-463325ef00220

possible to come across unknown characters or a range of anonymous people who were also protagonists of Independence^[1].

First, it is possible to recover the anonymous. Those whose face or name are often not found, but whose traits they left reveal other interpretations of the Independence of Brazil. I am referring here to the really unknown authors of the handwritten pamphlets between 1821 and 1823. It will hardly be possible to know who they were^[2] one day. Sometimes called paper or flyers, since they were presented in loose sheets, sometimes vertical, sometimes horizontal, they were placed on the walls and posts of public places, as shown by the remains of the limestone in the few examples found today in the archives. Always without indication of authorship, they revealed through their writing a simple and direct style, seeking to impact the recipient and facilitate the understanding of the message. They were full of misspellings, for example, in a proclamation entitled To the Weapons Portuguese to the Weapons lovers of your Nation, which can be read in the original manuscript: “To the Weapons inhabitants of this City, it is already time to break the fetters where you have lived for so long…”^[3] This fact demonstrates that it was probably a text written by individuals who presented some degree of study but were certainly not literate graduates in Coimbra or versed in the ideas of the century of the Enlightenment that, as a general rule, are considered as key-characters to the process that allowed the former Portuguese-Brazilian Kingdom to enter political modernity, leading to the formation of a new independent State from Portugal. Consequently, if the printed pamphlets of that same time reveal intense political debate among scholars about the most significant political issues of constitution-

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1. For the study of anonymous protagonists, cf. VAINFAS, Ronaldo. Os protagonistas anônimos da História: micro-história. Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 2002.
2. For the study of handwritten panphlets, cf. CARVALHO, José Murilo de; BASTOS, Lucia; BASILE, Marcello. Às armas cidadãos! … Op. cit.
3. RIO de Janeiro. Lata 195, maço 06, pasta 02. Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Histórico do Itamarati, 1821. Transcrito em CARVALHO, José Murilo de; BASTOS, Lucia; BASILE, Marcello. Às armas cidadãos! … Op. cit., p. 132-133.