Page:The Forgotten in the Independence Process.pdf/25

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

swear the Constitution and send deputies to the Courts”; they aimed at other objectives, “perhaps even more precise [sic] ends”, such as “extirpating abuses, extinguishing despotisms, taking the baton off generals and beautiful uniforms and making them dress accordingly with the peoples”^[1]. Thus, it became evident that Cassiano Espiridião was in favor of Portuguese constitutionalism, seeing in the colonial system only an oppression of the Old Regime. Later, removed from his post, he opposed Brazil’s independence - a vote against the noblest of causes, in the words of Joaquim Manoel de Macedo, which “could be tolerated in a Madeira or an Avilez, but never in a Brazilian”^[2]. Author of a pamphlet letter, although already known in politics, it is interesting to follow the later trajectory of this Brazilian against the “national” cause. Forgiven by the Emperor, he was assigned to the List of Pernambuco in 1824, at the time of the Confederation of Ecuador. Placing himself in favor of Paes Barreto etpour cause Pedro I he was arrested. Later, he was also a judge at the Relação da Bahia (1830), remaining in the period of abdication and the Regency as a faithful defender of the monarchy and the Crown, being elevated to senator of the Empire in 1836.^[3]

One of the most thought-provoking and curious characters, not because of his trajectory as an actor in the process, but as a formulator of ideas and the messages that his text brings, was Antônio Barbosa Correa - a rustic miner, as he called himself in his pamphlet Manifesto ao Grão Brasil^[4]. Although published in 1824, it describes the history of

25

Forum

1. MATTOS, Cassiano Spiridião de Mello e. Snr. redator da Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Tip. de Moreira & Garcez, 1821, p. 4. There is an answer to this article, written by Francisco Adjuto Garcia, accusing Cassiano of hunchback. Cf. CARTA addressed to Cassiano Spiridião de Mello e Mattos, asking for the definition of hunchback or constitutional, dated December 17th, 1821. Rio de Janeiro: Imp. Nacional, [1821].
2. MACEDO, Joaquim Manoel de. Anno Biographico Brazileiro, 1876. Vol. III. Rio de Janeiro: Typographia e Litographia do Imperial Instituto Artistico, 1876, p. 56.
3. Ibidem.
4. CORREA, António Barbosa. Manifesto ao Grão Brasil, Império dos Impérios do Mundo, oferecido à S. M. Imperial Defensor Perpetuo do Brazil by António Barbosa Correa Mineiro Rústico: ligado às profecias do Bandarra, e de outros profetas. Org. Loryel Rocha.Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Mukharajj, 2017.