Page:The Forgotten in the Independence Process.pdf/12

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

alism and separatism, the manuscripts stand out for indicating the presence of this literary war on the streets.

This point can be confirmed by the nature of the language more violent and forceful than that of more moderate tone of the printed writings. In this case, they also provide some clues to the origin of a more popular nature than the first ones. It must be remembered, however, that at that time, in Brazil, there was a distinction between people and commoners. In the political language of the time, people represented “the least educated and least addicted part of the nation, the most laborious and the poorest”^[1]; the commoners represented the “populace”, that is, the lowest levels of society, which, in Brazil, included slaves and some free men^[2].

Thus, it can be seen that if, on the one hand, the drivers of the struggle for the constitutionalization of the kingdom and for the independence of Brazil - landowners, traders, bachelors, clerks and the military - preferred to act with more prudence, while proclaiming obedience to the sovereign, to the dynasty and to the “conservation of holy religion”, on the other hand, through these handwritten pamphlets, a more emphatic language began to circulate in the streets of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Bahia and Maranhão, inciting the people to join to the constitutionalist movement of 1821, closely linked to the 1822 process:

To the guns Citizens It’s time To the guns
Not a moment more, you should lose
If by the force of reason, the Kings do not yield
From weapons to [sic] power kings must give up^[3]

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1. GÊNIO CONSTITUCIONAL. Porto, n. 41, 17 nov. 1821.
2. DIÁRIO DO GOVERNO. Rio de Janeiro, n. 86, 18 abr. 1823.
3. RIO de Janeiro. Lata 195, pack 06, folder 13. Rio de Janeiro: Arquivo Histórico do Itamarati, [1821]. Transcripted by CARVALHO, José Murilo de; BASTOS, Lucia; BASILE, Marcello. Às armas cidadãos! … Op. cit., p. 128. The date of 1821 is attributed since the Mareschal, representative of Austria in Brazil, affirmed that in September 1821, sedious posters began to appear summoning the Portuguese to arms. Cf. MELO, Jeronymo de Avelar Figueira de (org.). A correspondência do Barão de Wenzel de Mareschal. RHIGB, Rio de Janeiro, t. 77, v. 129, p. 165-244, 1914.