Imperial Federation of Brazil

Federal Republic of Brazil República Federal do Brasil
Flag Coat of arms
Motto: "Verdade, Justiça, Fraternidade" "Truth, Justice, Fraternity"
Anthem: Independence Anthem
Brazil, 2023
Capital	Petrópolis
Largest city	Alvorecer D'Ouro
Official languages	Portuguese Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRA)
Ethnic groups (2023 estimates)	42.5% White 40.2% Mixed 11.2% Black 3.8% Asian 2.3% Amerindian
Religion (2023 estimates)	56.7% Roman Catholic 14.5% Irreligious 7.9% Evangelical 6.3% Protestant 3.4% Spiritist 2.7% Other Christian 2.1% Afro-Brazilian Religions 6.4% Other Religions
Demonym(s)	Brazilian, Brazilese
Government	Federal parliamentary republic
• Grand-Rector	Giovanna Zanetti Gottschalk
• Minister-President	Alessandro Padovan Malvezzi
• Justice-Director of the Supreme Federal Court	Sebastião Carvalho Arruda
• Minister of War	Aloísio Ferreira Gomes
Legislature	Federal Parliament
• Upper house	Federal Senate
• Lower house	Chamber of Deputies
Independence from Portugal
• Declared	07 September 1770
• Recognized	29 August 1785
• Slavery Abolished	13 May 1858
• Brazilian Civil War	9 July 1932
• Current Constitution	19 December 1980
Area
•	10,920,944 km2 (4,216,600 sq mi)
Population
• 2020 census	252,003,000
• Density	22.15/km2 (57.4/sq mi)
GDP (nominal)	2021 estimate
• Total	$7.36 trillion (3rd)
• Per capita	$30,414 (28th)
Gini (2021)	43 medium
HDI (2021)	0.870 very high
Currency	Brazilian Real (R$) (BRL)
Time zone	UTC -5 to UTC -2
Date format	dd-mm-yyyy (CE)
Driving side	right
Calling code	+55
ISO 3166 code	BR
Internet TLD	.br

Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil), officially the Imperial Federation of Brazil (Portuguese: Federação Imperial do Brasil), is the largest country in the continents of Latin America, South America, and in The Americas. Brazil is the second-largest country by area (only behind Russia) and the fifth-most populous in the world. Its capital is Petrópolis, although there are plans to build a new capital city. The country is composed of a union of 41 states, two territories, and a Federal District. Brazil is the largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world. The country is the only Portuguese-speaking territory in the Americas, as well as the country with the largest Roman Catholic population. With access to both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, it borders all countries in South America without exceptions. Brazil covers more than half of the continent's area.

Brazil is one of the ten megadiverse countries and is home to most of the Amazon Rainorest. The Amazon Rainforest is home to highly diverse wildlife and contains uncountable natural resources. These facts turned Brazil into a subject of global interest, especially due to environmental degradation processes such as deforestation. The government pursues an ambivalent policy towards the Forest. Although extensive areas of the Amazon are protected by indigenous federations and natural reserves, companies are given permission to exploit areas that contain mineral resources. The government forbade deforestation for agriculture. According to political specialists and economists, this is not out of preoccupation due to environmental degradation, but due to concerns regarding deindustrialization.

Brazil was inhabited by various tribal groups prior to the landing of Portuguese explorer João Nunes Carvalho in 1469, who then claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Some territories that compose modern-day Brazil were colonized by the Spanish, the French, and the English, but most of those territories were incorporated into the General Captaincy of Brazil during the course of the 17th and 18th centuries. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1770 when the landholding elite of Petrópolis, unsatisfied with the Portuguese policies regarding taxation and military recruitment, organized a revolt against the General Captaincy government. While the initial goal of the revolt was to topple the colonial governor and pressure the Portuguese government, the initial success of the rebels inspired many of them to organize a nationwide revolt, beginning the Brazilian Revolution.

The Brazilian Revolution lasted for 15 years and only ended in 1785, with the establishment of the Federal Republic of Brazil. ]

Etymology

Brazil comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, pau-brasil; brasil means "red like an ember" in Portuguese.

The standard way to refer to a citizen of Brazil is as a "Brazilian". More recently, under the 1990 Orthographic Reform, Brazilese also has been accepted as an alternative to Brazilian and is often used in a political context.

History

Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current-day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people, mostly semi-nomadic tribes, who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, and migrant agriculture. However, to the west, in the Brazilian Andes, lived the Quechua, an indigenous group that was establishing the Incan Empire at the time. The Amerindian population comprised several groups, such as the Tupis, the Guaranis, and the Gês. Before European arrival, boundaries between these groups were marked by wars that came from cultural, moral, and linguistic differences. These wars involved cannibalistic rituals on prisoners of war.

The “first colonization phase”, or Pau-Brasil Cycle, as it is also known, took place over a period of just over 30 years. It was marked by the practice of the Pau-Brasil estancos, or regal monopolies on the extraction of wood. The Portuguese king granted to some merchants the monopoly of the extraction of brazilwood and products extracted from this tree. There was also the introduction of trade between indigenous people and the Portuguese through barter, which was the exchange of goods and/or services without the involvement of currency. During this phase, there was no large-scale settlement by the Portuguese. The largest settlements were the trading posts, which were nothing more than small warehouses for trade and for supplying the Portuguese fleets.

During that period, Portuguese access was restricted to the coastal region of Brazil. It was through the contact of indigenous peoples with Europeans at this time that the diseases of the Eurasian supercontinent contaminated and decimated the indigenous populations. It is estimated that up to 70% of the Amerindian population perished due to epidemics caused by European diseases. This horrendous fact is one of the great contributors to the European expansion in the American continent, since, only through diseases, three-quarters of the Amerindian population was exterminated in the first century of colonization, thus facilitating the colonization of the continent by Europeans.

From the 1490s, other European powers, notably France and England, showed interest in Brazilian lands. In order to avoid losing their lucrative business in the “New World”, the Portuguese decided to carry out the colonization of the territory, distributing the lands on the northeastern coast among bourgeois, nobles, and soldiers who would become known as captain-donates. This process began in 1498.

The Four Colonies of Brazil (1498-1620)

Among many of the captain-donates were the so-called “new Christians”, who were families of Jews converted to Catholicism. Families such as the Abrão, Pedraça, and Espragueiro were formerly wealthy Jewish families who were forcibly converted to Christianity and made their fortunes through the exploration of Brazilian territory. Many of these nobles and soldiers awarded the lands of Brazil had important prominence in the battles of the War of the Three Crowns, in which the sovereignty of Portugal was threatened by Spain. After the Triumph of Gibraltar, in which Portugal defeated the Spanish army, the King of Portugal also became the King of Aragon. Now with a broad commercial base in the Mediterranean, Portugal began to interact with Mediterranean states, most notably Genoa. It was during this period that Portugal embarked on the colonization of the so-called New World.

The king of Portugal, D. Manuel I, focused on the more profitable exploration of Africa and Asia and did not pay much attention to the effective colonization of Brazil. The colony of Brazil, at the time the State of Vera Cruz, attracted the attention of many other powers, with the exception of those who had discovered it. In 1504 the French installed colonies in the region of Guanabara, founding the colony of Antarticque France. Soon after, in 1507, the colony of Avalon was founded by the English, in southern Brazil. In the north of Brazilian territory, between 1506 and 1509, Spanish settlers and explorers founded several settlements on the coast of Rio do Mar and Chuvália. However, it was not the colonial race to populate and explore the Brazilian territory that attracted the attention of the Portuguese, but rather the discovery of remnants of an empire, of another civilization that, one day, inhabited the north coast of Brazil. Such a find only happened in the year 1515, precisely by a Portuguese fleet that landed near the current city of Nazaré, in the modern-day state of Rio do Mar. The discoveries made by these explorers attracted the curious and ambitious eyes of all of Western Europe, who then set out to sea, heading for northern Brazil in search of gold, silver, and any other type of booty that an empire could offer.

However, it was only in the year 1520 that Tobatinga, the only remaining city of the once formidable Ybapiranga Empire, was discovered - and plundered - by the Europeans. “Tobatinga didn't have a single gram of gold; the exchange coins were seeds of a strange fruit, called cocoa”, this is what was recorded in the diary of a Portuguese captain. Despite the initial indifference of the Portuguese towards cocoa, it was there that the intimate relationship between cocoa and the colonization, exploration, and settlement of the Brazilian territory began.

Cocoa, along with sugar, was largely responsible for the European population of Brazilian territory. Both items, in very high demand in European markets, were cultivated in the form of large estates not only by the Portuguese colonists, but also by the French and the Spanish - the English had occupied a territory where cocoa production was unfeasible, and sugar production was limited by climate.

Each region of European colonization was known for its peculiarity. The Portuguese provinces in northeastern Brazil were known for their latifundia and for having started the slave trade from sub-Saharan Africa, in addition to the fact that most Portuguese peasants were “degraded”; the French colonies became “safe spaces” for those suffering religious persecution in Europe; the Spanish colonies were more focused on subsistence and trade; and the English colonies were the only ones to follow the model of “population”, and not exploitation, being populated by Irish refugees and English Protestants who resisted the counter-reformation.

In 1521, the Captaincy-General of Brazil was founded, which unified and centralized the hereditary captaincies under a single Captain-General, who answered directly to the King of Portugal. The Captaincy-General of Brazil was, right from the start, a success compared to the system of hereditary captaincies: if only a few territories and captaincies had been effectively populated and “pacified” during the first phase of colonization, during the Captaincy-General the effort that the first captain-general, Gonçalo Marques e Silva, made in order to attract Portuguese immigrants, pacify the land, and bring in African labor is unparalleled in Brazilian colonial history, at least among Portuguese colonizers.

From 1521 to approximately 1580, exploration of Brazilian land took place mainly on the coast. Sugarcane and cocoa became the main export goods of the Brazilian territory. Brazil's four colonial systems - that is, the Portuguese patrimonial system (capitanias), the Spanish encomienda system, the English resettlement system, and the French settlement system - were fundamentally different, with different methods, means, and objectives.

The Portuguese Hereditary Captaincy: Despite the centralization and unification of the hereditary captaincies under the system of the General Captaincy of Brazil, the system of captaincies remained standing until the independence of Brazil during the Revolutionary War. The Captaincy-General was subdivided into “administrative captaincies”, basically fiefdoms led by soldiers, merchants, small nobles, and also petty bourgeois who had been awarded vast tracts of land for services rendered to the crown. These nobles, bourgeois, merchants, and soldiers were responsible for attracting and distributing land to Portuguese immigrants, maintaining order and law - those being their own words - and, above all, defending the territory from incursions and foreign pirates. The Portuguese crown had a monopoly on the exploitation of pau-brasil; as a result, these captain-donaries began to explore other means of profiting from their lands, through the planting of cocoa and sugar cane. The mass of laborers on the latifundia were African slaves.

The Spanish Encomienda: A regime of exploitation of indigenous labor in which the Spanish master of a community, the encomendero, used this indigenous labor for economic activities and, in return, should offer religious education to the indigenous people, Christianizing them. The exploitation of labor depended on the concession of the Spanish Crown, and the encomienda was only passed on to two generations after the beneficiary. In Brazil, the aim of the encomienda was to extract “drugs from the sertão”, which were widespread in the North Region.

French Colonization: In Brazil, French colonization was limited, but lasting. Restricted only to the current states of Guanabara and Itapemirim (and a small part of São Vicente), French colonization took place mainly by Huguenot refugees, French Protestants who were persecuted by the Catholic and absolutist state of France. The Huguenots lived on subsistence and from planting sugar cane, but the exploitation of this item was limited. The slavery of indigenous people took place more intensely than the slavery of Africans.

The English Resettlement: The English colonization of Brazil took place in the south of the Brazilian territory, being populated by Irish, Scottish, and English Protestant immigrants who sought to escape the persecution imposed either by the counter-reformation or by the state of perpetual civil war in which England found itself engulfed into since the end of the 100 Years' War. The English Resettlement took place in the distribution of land taken from the Guaranis and Charruas indigenous peoples to the refugees from the British Isles; it is noted that Scots and Irish were barred from owning large tracts of land, and most ended up becoming servants of the English (the “pale-slaves”, as they became known). The indigenous people were not enslaved, but there were waves of African slaves in the English colonies, who worked on tobacco and maize plantations, in addition to the "jerkeries" - manufacturies the Portuguese would call "charquedas".

The Race for Brazil (1620-1718)

The Race for Brazil (Corrida pelo Brasil in Portuguese), or the Third Colonization Phase, is the name given to the period of the “gold fever” that took place in Brazilian territory. After the discovery of gold in Dourados by the Portuguese in 1620, all Western European nations turned their attention to Brazil - a territory that, until then, only the coast and the banks of some rivers had been properly explored and populated.

To reinforce the security of the Captaincy-General of Brazil, Portugal began to encourage the settlement of the “Sertão” - the hinterland of Brazil. They brought men both from Portugal and Aragon, and this time it wasn't just the convicts, but also peasants from the mainland as well as inhabitants of other Portuguese territories in Asia and Africa. The Gold Rush reached a climax in 1646 when more gold deposits were discovered in Selvática. During this period, the Portuguese also tightened their grip on French and Spanish colonies in the Americas, which led to the conquests of Antarctic France in 1633 and the Spanish Amazon in 1640. During the War of the Three Swords, a civil war between three different dynasties that devastated England and Ireland in the 1650s, the English colony of Avalon became practically independent, causing Portugal to take advantage of this moment of English weakness and annex the territory in 1658. At the end of the War of the Three Swords, in which a Republic was established, the British Republic formally recognized Portuguese rule over Avalon.

However, around 1700, such was the intensity of exploitation of the deposits, Brazil no longer produced so much gold. This led to an economic crisis in the Captaincy-General, which resulted in the Coffee Outbreak. To try to remedy the economic crisis of its largest and most profitable colony, the Portuguese Crown invested heavily in the planting of cotton and coffee. It was the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England, and Portugal still had rudimentary manufactures. Cotton was shipped to European factories for fabric and clothing production; coffee, on the other hand, which was going through a period of scarcity in the market, turned out to be the final card of the Portuguese colonizers, since it was the coffee plantation that was really responsible for taking Brazil out of an economic crisis.

In the year 1718, Brazil was united from north to south, east to west. The Captaincy-General of Brazil extended from Caiena, in Camopi, to Monte Jovem, in Cisplatina. However, the economic and social development resulting from the exploitation of gold and the intensification of colonization also ended up kicking off the formation of the Brazilian national identity. In August 1718, the Canavial Revolution began in Pernambuco, a center of cotton and sugar production.

Colonial Decadence (1718-1770)

The Canavial Revolution was only the first of many revolts, revolutions, and insurgencies against the Captaincy General. It was instigated by peasants and slaves who worked in the sugar cane plantation but soon reached other sectors of Pernambuco society. Among the goals of the revolution were: the end of physical punishment of peasants, the emancipation of slaves, and improvements in working conditions.

Despite being heavily fought and repressed, the revolution lasted three years, only ending with the capture and subsequent execution of its leader, Manuel Francisco Rodrigues, in 1722. The revolution devastated the province of Pernambuco, causing a decline in economic activity throughout the entire northeastern region of Brazil. What followed was a resumption of the economic crises that had plagued Brazil since the turn of the century.

During the course of the 1730s the right-hand man of the King of Portugal, the Duke of Guimarães, began a series of institutional reforms aimed at centralizing and standardizing the administration of Portugal's overseas territories, especially Brazil. Among these measures were the expulsion of religious orders from the territories (and the confiscation of their properties), the adoption of Portuguese as the only official language, the standardization of the tax system, the transfer of the capital of Brazil from Olinda to Salvador and the standardization of the colonial army.

The reforms gained wide support and success, despite protests by the colonial elites that were conquered in the previous century, which led to the outbreak of several small-scale revolts. The clergy were also dissatisfied, and the king of Portugal, Dom Henrique IV, was threatened with excommunication by Pope Clement XII. However, when Dom Henrique IV was killed in the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, he was succeded by his son, Dom Francisco I, who quickly moved to tax the colonies in order to fund the rebuilding of Portugal. In 1760 Portugal became involved in the Seven Years' War, invading Spain in order to unify the Iberian Peninsula, but the war turned out to be a disaster, and Portugal lost not only men - many of them who were recruited from the colonies - but also land and prestige. This enraged the Brazilian elites, who were overtaxed and lost men in a pointless war. In 1766 the Coffee Export Tax was imposed in the Captaincy-General of Brazil, a fact that is considered by historians to be the main reason behind the Brazilian Revolutionary War.

Brazilian Revolutionary War (1770-1785)

According to the diary of José Manuel Valadão, the leader of the 7 September Insurrection, the plans of the Brazilian Revolution were been in the making since 1768. However, J. M. Valadão and his comrades only felt comfortable to uprise when the Brazilian colonial governor, João Antônio Santos Pimentel, was visiting Petrópolis, Valadão's home town.

Geography

Snow in mountains near Florianópolis, Santa Catarina

Brazil is the largest country in Latin America and the third-largest in the Americas, only behind Canada and the United States of America. It occupies 8,599,093 km2, more than half of South America. It shares land borders with Uruguay to the south; Argentina and Paraguay to the Southwest; Peru and Chile to the East; Colombia to the Northwest; and Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and Germany (German overseas region of Guyana) to the north. Ecuador is the only South American country Brazil does not share a border with. Brazil also encompasses many archipelagos, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz. These archipelagos are territories of Brazil. Its size, climate, and availability of natural resources make Brazil a geographically diverse country.

The Federal Republic of Brazil spans four time zones; UTC−5 comprising the states of Acre, Antofagasta, and Petrônia, to UTC-4 in the western states, to UTC-3 in the eastern states (also the national time), and UTC-2 in the Atlantic Territories. Brazil is the longest country in the world, spanning 4,395 km from its northernmost point (Oiapoque) to its southernmost point (Chuí). Most of the terrain lies between 200 meters and 800 meters in elevation, although to the west, in the States of Antofagasta and Petrônia, the elevation is significantly higher.

Brazil has a dense and complex system of rivers. There are eight major drainage basins, and each single one of them drains into the Atlantic Ocean. Major rivers include the Amazon (the world's second-longest river and the largest in terms of volume of water), the Paraná and its major tributary the Iguaçu (which includes the Iguazu Falls), the São Francisco, Xingu, and Tapajós.

Climate

Although most of the country is tropical, Brazil comprises a varied range of weather conditions. According to the Köppen system, Brazil is home to six major climatic subtypes: desert, equatorial, tropical, semiarid, oceanic, and subtropical. The different climatic conditions produce diverse environments, ranging from equatorial rainforests in the northern region, semiarid deserts in the northeast and west, temperate coniferous forests in the south, and tropical savannas in the center-west.

An equatorial climate characterizes much of northern Brazil. There is no real dry season, but there are some variations in the period of the year when most rain falls. Temperatures average 25 °C. with more significant temperature variation between night and day than between seasons. Over central Brazil, rainfall is more seasonal, characteristic of a savanna climate. This region is as extensive as the Amazon basin but has a very different climate as it lies farther south at a higher altitude. In the interior northeast, seasonal rainfall is even more extreme. The semiarid climatic region generally receives less than 800 millimeters (31.5 in) of rain, most of which generally falls in a period of three to five months of the year and occasionally less than this, creating long periods of drought. South of Bahia, near the coasts, and in most of the state of São Paulo, the distribution of rainfall changes, with rain falling throughout the year. The south enjoys subtropical conditions, with cool winters and average annual temperatures not exceeding 18 °C; winter frosts and snowfall are not rare in the highest areas.

Government and Politics

Main article: List of political parties in the Federal Republic of Brazil

Main article: Federative Units of Brazil (Pax Brasiliana)

Palácio Ipiranga, official house of the Prime Minister

Brazil is a democratic federal constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary system. The Prime Minister is the head of government and the Monarch is the head of state. The prime minister usually rules for as long as his coalition stays in power. There is no term limit for offices in the parliament. The current prime minister is Giovanna Gottschalk, who was appointed by the Brazilian emperor Dom Henrique I following the resignation of Ingrid Santos' cabinet. The monarch is Dom Henrique I de Orléans e Bragança, who was directly elected by the people in the 2020 General Election. The government can be dissolved either through a vote of no confidence from the parliament or from the monarch. In 2018 the government was dissolved by the monarch following a gridlock over the issue of intervention in the Bolivarian War. In 2022 the government of Ingrid Winckler Santos resigned over the Vincenzi Letter Scandal.

Voting used to be compulsory until 2003 when it was made voluntary. Since 2010 the minimum voting age is 16. Most Brazilian citizens are allowed to vote upon reaching the minimum voting age, except for those living abroad. The Federal Parliament is composed of two houses: the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house) and the Federal Senate (the upper house). Deputies and senators are elected through proportional representation.

Brazil is composed of 41 states, one federal district, and two territories. The Federal Republic is often referred to as the "Union". The three branches of government - the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary - are clearly defined by the constitution. The Union, the states, the Federal District, and the municipalities compose what is called the "spheres of government". The Federal Republic is built upon five fundamental principles: pluralism, sovereignty, justice, liberty, and equality. The executive and legislative branches of government are organized in all spheres of government, while the judicial branch is organized only at the Federal, State, and Federal District levels. Municipalities and territories do not have courts.

Law and Justice

Palácio do Riachuelo, seat of the Supreme Federal Court

Brazilian law is based on the civil law system. The entirety of Brazilian law is codified. The legal system is based on the Federal Constitution, which was promulgated in 1984. As of December 2021, there have been eight amendments to the Constitution, with many other amendment proposals rejected. Each state (and the Federal District) has its own constitution, which must not contradict federal law. Since each federal unit has its own constitution, many states preserved the presidential form of government, while others adhere to a parliamentary system. Municipalities have "organic laws", whose function is similar to a constitution. Legislative entities are the main source of statutes, although the judiciary and executive bodies can enact norms on special occasions. There also are specialized labor, military, sports, and electoral courts. The highest court is the Supreme Federal Court. After passing entry exams, the Judicial Committee appoints judges and other officials. The Judicial Committee is an independent body, created in 1983 by Prime Minister Roberto Santos in an attempt to curb corruption and nepotism. The Brazilian judicial system has been praised for its quick-paced rulings and efficiency. Nonetheless, the population and specialists criticize the system for the privileges that public servants and politicians receive, which can be considered one of the main factors behind corruption in Brazil.

Foreign policy

Main article: Foreign Relations of the Federal Republic of Brazil

The International Relations of Brazil are based on Article 3 of the Brazilian Constitution of 1950. According to Article 3, Brazil's official foreign policy is one of neutrality, peaceful settlement of conflicts, international cooperation, and reciprocity. On the matter of reciprocity, the article allows military intervention if a country violates Brazilian neutrality or threatens its territorial integrity, such as seen in the Bolivarian War. According to the Constitution, the president has complete control over the armed forces, although the Federal Parliament is tasked with diplomatic nominations and legislation relating to foreign policy.

Considered a hegemon in South America, Brazil has competed with the Socialist States of America for influence over Central America. The Brazilian development plans for undeveloped countries are widely regarded as a model to be followed. Brazil donates an estimated $20 billion as foreign aid to other countries. The receivers usually are Latin American countries or Portuguese-speaking territories, although other countries do receive aid in the form of expertise and diplomacy.

On December 2021, the Federal Republic of Brazil joined the World Assembly. The Brazilian prime minister, Ingrid Santos, stated the government's intention to be more active in international affairs, thus joining the World Assembly.