Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul República do Rio Grande do Sul (Rio-Grandense Portuguese)
Flag Seal
Motto:  "Liberdade, Igualdade, Humanidade" "Freedom, Equality, Humanity"
Anthem:  "Hino Revolucionário Rio-Grandense" "Revolutionary Rio-Grandense Anthem"
Rio-Grandense Republic
Capital and largest city	Porto Alegre
Official languages	Rio-Grandense Portuguese
Recognised regional languages	Kaingang Charrua Rio-Grandense Spanish Guarani Hunsrik
Ethnic groups (2024)	60.6% White 16.97% Brown 15.89% Black 7.34% Indigenous 0.17% Asian
Demonym(s)	Rio-Grandense Rio-Grandian Gaucho
Government	Unitary parliamentary Republic
• President	Olívio Dutra
• Prime Minister	Manuela D'Avila
Legislature	Assembly of the Republic
Independence from the Empire of Brazil
• Ragamuffin War	September 20th, 1835
• Declaration of Independence	September 11th, 1836
• Pampas Confederation	March 23th, 1848
• National Reconstruction Regime	September 11th, 1930
• First Rio-Grandense Republic	September 20th, 1934
• Insurrection of the Peoples	February 28th, 1953
• Socialist Republic of Rio Grande do Sul	March 10th, 1953
• Revolution of the Roses	July 12th, 1992
• Second Rio-Grandense Republic	November 10th, 1992
Area
• Total	340.668 km2 (131.533 sq mi)
• Water (%)	33.56
Population
• 2024 estimate	24,567,345
• Density	72.1/km2 (186.7/sq mi)
GDP (PPP)	2021 estimate
• Total	$1.048 trillion
• Per capita	$42,690
GDP (nominal)	2021 estimate
• Total	$691 billion
• Per capita	$28,130
Gini (2021)	33.6 medium
HDI (2021)	0.893 very high
Currency	Guarani (G$) (GUA)
Time zone	UTC -3
Date format	dd/mm/yyyy
Driving side	right
Calling code	+53
ISO 3166 code	RSG
Internet TLD	.rs

Rio Grande do Sul (Rio-Grandense Portuguese: República do Rio Grande do Sul or República Rio-Grandense, lit. 'Republic of Rio Grande do Sul' or 'Rio-Grandense Republic') is a country in South America. It shares borders with Brazil to the North, Argentina to the West (separated by the Uruguay River) and Uruguay to the South. It is a part of the Southern Cone region of South America. Rio Grande do Sul covers an area of 340.668 square kilometers and has a population of around 24 million people, of which about 12 million live in the metropolitan zones of either the capital of Porto Alegre or the city of Rio Grande.

The land of present-day Rio Grande do Sul has been inhabited by hunter-gatherers since 12,000 BCE. The predominant tribe before the arrival of Europeans was the Guarani people, but there were also other, smaller, tribes such as the Minuan, Caaguara, Kaingang or the Charruá people. Effective colonization of the entire territory of Rio Grande do Sul by Europeans was reasonably late, but the first colonial settlement of São Francisco do Sul was created in 1658.

In 1627, Spanish Jesuits created Jesuit missions near the Uruguay River, but were expelled by the Portuguese in 1680, when the Portuguese Crown decided to take over their domain, founding the Colony of Sacramento. In 1682, the Spanish Jesuits established the Seven Peoples of the Missions. The Portuguese arrived in 1737 with a military expedition by José da Silva Paes. The struggles for land ownership between the Portuguese and Spanish continued, and only ended in 1801, when the Gauchos themselves dominated the Seven Peoples, incorporating them into their territory. The Captaincy of São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul was created on September 19, 1807. On February 28, 1821, it became the Province of São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul, inside the emerging Empire of Brazil.

However, insatisfaction with the imperial government and it's taxes led the Gaucho oligarchical elite (the estancieros) to revolt, starting the Ragamuffin War on September 20th, 1835. Although the original intention of the rebels was never to separate the province from the Empire, a enraged and brutal Brazil forced them to double on the independence of Rio Grande do Sul as a independent republic, together with the Juliana Republic. As other nations such as Paraguay, Argentina and USA involved themselves in the war, the Brazilian troops ended up backing down and signing the Treaty of Poncho Verde on June 8th 1848, effectively recognising the Pampas Cofederation (Rio-Grandense Republic and Juliana Republic) and ending the war.

The rest of the history of Rio Grande do Sul has been turbulent throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries. Enslaved people rebelled in the Revolt of the Black Spearmen of 1850 against the betrayal of the newly independent Confederation, who promised abolition but never followed through. The Juliana Republic proclaimed independence from the Confederation in the Railway Conflict of 1890, being annexed back to the Confederation by the Treaty of Desterro of 1892. In 1930, a Military Triumvirate overthrew the ruling oligarchy and set the National Reconstruction Regime, a quasi-fascist, interventionist regime in practice, ending the Pampas Confederation and centralising the nation under the First Rio-Grandense Republic in 1934. By 1953, the regime of Getúlio Vargas was overthrown by the MP-12-1 guerilla, putting a socialist regime in place. The Socialist Republic of Rio Grande do Sul would last until 1992, where the Revolution of the Roses brought back liberal democracy.

Today, Rio Grande do Sul is a developed country, with a high-income advanced mixed economy (the only of its kind in South America), ranking 33rd in the Human Development Index. It has a prominent Technological Industry, being the headquarters for a phletora of enterprises and a high FDI. It ranks 6th for population in South America. The government is a Unitary Parliamentary Republic, administratively subdivided into 8 Departments, which is regarded as one of the most transparent and socially progressive governments of the continent, ranking low in perception of corruption, high in innovation, income equality, press freedom and digitalisation of services. Universal suffrage, abortion, cannabis and same-sex marriage have been legalised early in the country.

Etymology

The name of the nation originated from a series of cartographic errors and disagreements, when it was believed that Lagoa dos Patos was the mouth of the Rio Grande, which was already demonstrated on Dutch maps, decades before Portuguese colonization in the region . From what is known so far, the first cartographer from the Netherlands to record Lagoa dos Patos, still considered the Rio Grande, was Frederick de Wit, in his 1670 atlas. The first cartographic record made by a Dutchman to show the supposed river with a format close to what is known today from the aforementioned lagoon was Nikolaus Visscher, in 1698. Although he was not the first to mention the Patos natives who inhabited its banks and much of the coast of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, he was the one who associated the name with the lagoon. Around 1720, Azoreans from Laguna came to the São José do Norte region to look for the Cimarrón cattle coming from the missions, enabling the subsequent foundation of the city of Rio Grande, in the year 1737. From the name of the municipality, the name of the municipality also arose. name of the province of São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul, which would later become independent and give its name to the current country of Rio Grande do Sul.

History

Prehistory and initial European colonization

At the time of the Discovery of Brazil, the region that today forms Rio Grande do Sul was inhabited by the Minuan, Charrua and Caaguara natives, who lived around 12,000 BC. They were good potters and, when hunting, they used Boleadeiras, to this day one of the instruments of the gaucho pawn. These tribes lived for a long time without contact with the white colonizers. Disputes between Portugal and Spain over the limits of their possessions in America meant that the region was only occupied in the 17th century. Spanish Jesuit priests were the first to settle there.

The geographical peculiarities of the current nation of Rio Grande do Sul, divided into 11 different physiographic regions, influenced to delay the occupation of the land, to the east, by the European conqueror. Another negative factor was the Treaty of Tordesillas, of 1494, which divided sovereignty over discoveries between Portugal and Spain by an ideal meridian. In the case of Brazil, the meridian extended from the vicinity of the island of Marajó to the bay of Laguna, in Santa Catarina. Given the doubts that arose about the exact point where the agreed line should pass and the São Pedro river being located precisely in the area whose confrontation was being discussed, neither of those two nations rushed to occupy it, for fear of new diplomatic difficulties. However, at the beginning of the 17th century, Spain penetrated the left bank of the Uruguay River, through the intermediation of the Jesuits who, from Paraguay, established their reductions in various points, even reaching the surroundings of the future city of Porto Alegre and, in general, , lording it over the entire west of Rio Grande do Sul.

Next, the bandeirantes destroyed the province of Guairá, went down to the province of Tape, in the heart of the Rio Grande, and to the province of Uruguay, destroying the villages and imprisoning the natives, who they took as slaves to their farms. Antônio Raposo Tavares was one of the greatest leaders of these predatory expeditions. The villages were razed, their inhabitants killed or imprisoned, and the survivors fled with the Jesuits to the south, where they settled along the right bank of the Uruguay River. By taking catechesis, villages, resorts and herbal gardens to a wide range of the territory, between 1632 and 1634 the Jesuits established reductions in the upper Ibicuí (São Tomé, São Miguel, São José, São Cosme and São Damião). They expanded the penetration area, reached the Jacuí basin and established other reductions, including beyond the province of Tape (Santa Teresa, Santa Ana, São Joaquim, Natividade, Jesus Maria, São Cristóvão).

The victory achieved against the Paulistas in the battle of Mbororé, in 1641, was not enough to allow the reductions to be fixed. The exodus of indigenous populations — already started after the assault on Raposo Tavares' flag, in 1637 — intensified, with the transfer of the Jesuits and the natives to the right bank of the Uruguay River, in the fertile Mesopotamia of Paraná. Due to these events, the first phase of Jesuit civilization in the territory of current Rio Grande do Sul was concluded, with the abandonment of lands open to those who arrived first to occupy them, adventurers and colonizers. Only after 1680, with the founding of Colônia do Sacramento, on the upper bank of the River Plate, did the region become the object of political dispute between the Portuguese and Spanish.

Pressure from the bandeirantes did not put an end to the presence of the Jesuits on the eastern bank of the Uruguay River. The religious returned fifty years after the exodus, attracted by the economic availability of the region, especially cattle. With the return to the lost territory, the second phase of Jesuit penetration began, which in reality only ended with the War of 1801 — preceded by long and indecisive diplomatic actions —, which definitively incorporated the region into Rio Grande do Sul.

The second phase is seen in the history of the Seven Peoples of the Missions, with the starting point of 1687 (São Francisco de Borja, São Nicolau, São Luiz Gonzaga, São Miguel Arcanjo, São Lourenço Mártir, São João Batista, Santo Ângelo Custódio). The danger from São Paulo did not cease, although it became less threatening, with the concentration of Portuguese power on the coastal strip, of which Colônia do Sacramento would be the extreme point. Situated in lands nominally controlled by Spain, under the command of Buenos Aires, the Seven Peoples covered the extremes of the large herds of cattle, which were concentrated in the dairy farms — the Vacarias do Mar, which reached the extreme south of the current Rio Grande do Sul. South, penetrating Uruguayan territory, and Vacaria dos Pinhais, in the region still called Vacaria today, in the northeast of the country.

The Treaty of Tordesillas did not prevent the Portuguese crown from granting itself the territory that today comprises Rio Grande do Sul and the Eastern Republic of Uruguay. It was the Captaincy of El-Rei or province of El Rei and appears on a 1562 map with the name "d'el Rei Nosso Senhor". In 1676, the regent D. Pedro donated to Viscount de Asseca and João Correia de Sá two plots of land, from Laguna to the mouth of the River Plate. Still in 1676, the bishopric of Rio de Janeiro extended to the River Plate, probably in line with Portuguese claims, covering the entire region of Southern Brazil.

Since the beginning of Brazil's colonization, the lands of the southern region did not attract much interest from Portuguese colonizers, due to the absence of precious metals and their colder climate (since frosts made it difficult to cultivate sugar cane). The captaincies, not explored, reverted, in 1727, to the royal patrimony, with D. João V refusing to confirm them. From the middle of the 17th century, under official encouragement and command, Portuguese expansion to the south took the direction of the Atlantic coast or along the ocean margin, always with maritime support. In 1647, Paranaguá was founded, with the establishment, seven years later, of Curitiba, in a movement that would make it impossible, in the future, for an advance capable of separating São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro from the extreme south. In 1658, São Francisco already existed, as a support point, planted in the territory of the current department of Santa Catarina.

In 1736, an expedition led by José da Silva Pais arrived at the mouth of Lagoa dos Patos, which was mistaken for a large river. The Jesus-Maria-José fort was founded there. This fort, made of wattle and daub, was the origin of the settlement of Vila de Rio Grande (future city of Rio Grande). The Captaincy of Rio Grande de São Pedro was then created. The location was a strategic point for the defense of the territory, being halfway between Laguna and Colonia do Sacramento. From 1725 onwards, Royal Roads were built connecting São Paulo to the cattle pastures of Rio Grande, which made it possible for groups of drovers to colonize the Vacaria and Tramandaí fields. Leaving Viamão, other groups advanced through the valleys of the Taquari and Jacuí rivers.

From the 1740s, on the initiative of Alexandre de Gusmão, minister of King D. João V, Portugal began a colonization project in the south of Brazil, aiming to guarantee possession of the territory disputed by the Spanish. With this objective, immigration from Madeira Island and the Azores was used. From 1746 onwards, Azorean couples began to be sent to Rio Grande to guarantee possession of the territory. It was a new form of colonization that Alexandre advocated, through families that produced, without needing slaves. The first sixty couples founded Porto dos Casais, later Porto Alegre. A set of forts began to be created and around five thousand Azorean immigrants began to colonize the captaincy. The economic nature of the region was defined as a subsistence economy (linked to the national market, but isolated from exporting interests), based mainly on wheat production and Azorean colonization.

In 1763, the governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, Pedro de Cevallos, taking advantage of the War between Portugal and Spain, attacked and conquered half of the territory of the Captaincy of Rio Grande do Sul, together with its capital, the town of Rio Grande . In 1776 the town of Rio Grande was retaken by Portuguese colonists in the Spanish-Portuguese War of 1776-1777. On October 1, 1777, the Treaty of Santo Ildefonso ended the colonial war and gave Portugal definitive possession of the territory of Rio Grande do Sul, with the exception of the Missions that remained in Spanish possession. A few years later, in the War of 1801, the territory of the Seven Peoples of the Missions would finally be conquered by the Gauchos and annexed the Portuguese possessions through the Treaty of Badajoz.

The economic factor had great importance in the process of integration of colonial Rio Grande do Sul with the rest of Portuguese America. The constant needs for mules and meat, during the gold cycle, required imports from the extreme south, which encouraged the opening of new roads. Once the gold fever ended, trade continued, stimulated by the production of jerky, after Ceará reduced its exports, devastated by the drought of 1777. The period of predatory conquest of the territory ended and the resort was consolidated as a production center, complemented by charqueada, expanded by the introduction of slave labor. The cattle trader (mules, horses and cows), the drover, became rich and acquired social importance.

The subsidiary nature of the economy, increasingly relevant, created a differentiated production unit, linked to the national market, but isolated from exporting interests. The dominant groups in the country would not associate themselves with the demands of the extreme south, which were antagonistic to their objectives of cheap food for slaves. The group exporting products of European acceptance, always stimulated by the political center, in its exclusivism, would infuse Rio Grande do Sul society with an awareness of economic, social and political isolation, which the components of military training would, at certain times, make explosive . In 1807, when the captaincy was no longer subordinated to Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul society had already been defined, with small agriculture gradually dissolving in the expansion of the large rancher property, generated on the lavishly granted sesmarias. The campaign, with its pastoral centers, only found, with a different spirit, the urban centers and the evanescent agricultural groups, peaceful and located to the east, around Porto Alegre, later, with the small properties resulting from German colonization, which developed from 1824 onwards.

Brazilian rule, Ragamuffin War and independence

In the struggles over the dominance of Uruguay, which would result in the creation of the Cisplatina Province and its transformation into an independent country in 1828, the Rio Grande do Sul territory suffered a heavy loss of men and resources. The region of Missões Orientales, still poorly populated, served as a theater for incursions determined by José Gervásio Artigas, who would supply himself with horses and cattle. To support this unsuccessful campaign, Rio Grande mobilized all its human and material resources. Alongside the regular troops that the court sent to the south, local militiamen reinvigorated a new military layer, now closely linked to the estancia, with its reserves of the rural proletariat, the gaucho. Among the leaders, glorious names emerged, which would influence the future: Bento Gonçalves da Silva, José de Abreu, João de Deus Mena Barreto, José Antônio Correia da Câmara, Manuel Marques de Sousa.

In the wake of Brazilian independence, Brigadier João Carlos de Saldanha, later Duke of Saldanha, governed the captaincy as captain-general. In 1821 the provinces were created, on a provisional basis, by decree of the Lisbon courts, in which government boards subordinate to Portugal were to be elected, Saldanha was elected president. Parish voters, however, did not fully comply with the decree, considering the article that linked the government to Lisbon unwritten. The vice-president, Field Marshal João de Deus Mena Barreto, suspicious of Saldanha's Portuguese loyalty, created the conditions for the political blockade of the president, who in December 1822 withdrew to Rio de Janeiro, without articulating his defense of the union of kingdoms, with Portuguese hegemony. Following Fico, municipal councils consolidated nativist sentiment, making reaction impossible, with Mena Barreto already in government. In this action, the local militiaman, the estanciero, the urban bourgeoisie and the gaucho were based on the thin Portuguese military layer.

Rio Grande had expanded its population and wealth. In 1780, according to the first general census of the captaincy, the population was around 18,000 inhabitants, while, in 1814, it already reached around 71,000. The number of slaves increased greatly in the interregnum of these 34 years, from 5,000 to 20,000, initially concentrating on wheat production areas, affected by a shortage of arms. With the decline of wheat, the slave moved, in a small proportion, to the estancia, now transformed into a productive unit and no longer one of appropriation, and, on a large scale, to the charqueadas. The ranch needed little labor, although it is customary to exaggerate the small number of slaves employed there.

Over the course of the 19th century, charqueadas took on an increasing increase, to the point of dismantling the subsistence economy, which, shortly before, turned the estancia into an almost autonomous center, served by the farm. Grazing and beef jerky took over the economy and would impose the import of foodstuffs, if German colonization did not soon fill the gap. Commercial centers then prospered, with the ascendancy of Porto Alegre, which centralized the exchanges of eastern populations, of Azorean origin, encouraging redistribution centers as far as the Missions. Next to Pelotas, the province's maritime opening was planned, Rio Grande, the only port on the coast, although difficult to access. Land routes continued to be important, which took pastoral production to the north, via the Sorocaba fair, the main distribution center for São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Goiás. A large part of the progress was due to the consumption of military personnel, without the exception of arbitrary confiscations, not uncommon throughout the region. For a population of 110,000 inhabitants, at the beginning of the empire, the cattle herd amounted to 5,000,000 heads, with 1,000,000 horses. The Eastern Missions were populated with sesmarias granted, in large areas, to military personnel who moved during the war and to adventurers who came down from São Paulo, swollen by the exodus from Santa Catarina and Paraná, to graze on fertile land.

Once the political system of the empire was organized, the judge José Feliciano Fernandes Pinheiro, viscount of São Leopoldo, future senator of the empire, occupied the presidency of Rio Grande do Sul. As for the entire country, the period of short administrations, incapable of continuous work, began, with 54 effective presidents and 24 interim presidents, from Fernandes Pinheiro to Justo de Azambuja Rangel, in 1889. In the 19th century, the Kaingang natives who occupied The mountainous areas of the Southern Region of Brazil were violently displaced by the actions of indigenous killers called "bugreiros". These had been hired to open space for the installation, by the Brazilian imperial government, of European immigrants in the region, aiming at the "whitening" of the Brazilian population, until then mostly black and mixed race.

The dispute between the center and the province, dampened by the Cisplatine War, intensified in the first three decades of the century, until the Ragamuffin Revolution of 1835. Producers of beef jerky and cattle derivatives and suppliers of mules, the Rio Grande do Sul residents did not have the means to to influence the center’s political-economic lines of conduct. Unable to compete with platinum production, which was better equipped and had lower costs, Rio Grande do Sul's economy was subject to instability, to the detriment of breeders and charqueadores. The tax burden on Rio Grande do Sul's production became suffocating. Tax revenues, carried to the center, reverted in a minimal portion to the south. On the other hand, the presidents of the province, agents of Rio de Janeiro, did not show solidarity with local interests.

As such, by 1835 the situation deteriorated drastically. A group of rebels led by provincial deputee and militiaman Bento Gonçalves da Silva attacked and captured most of the territory of the provincial capital of Porto Alegre and deposed the provincial president Antônio Rodrigues Fernandes Braga, appointing Marciano José Pereira Ribeiro as the new president. Braga exiled himself in the city of Rio Grande, then moving to the imperial capital of Rio de Janeiro to report the situation to the Court. The Regent of the Brazilian Empire, Diogo Antônio Feijó, appointed a new provincial president, José de Araújo Ribeiro, who was escorted by a large military brigade and pleaded office at the provisory capital of Rio Grande. Ribeiro would rebuild the provincial army, preparing it for a swift incursion against the rebels. In 1836, Bento Gonçalves is captured and arrested by government forces. This leads to the military leader of the rebels, Antônio de Souza Neto, to declare the independence of Rio Grande do Sul on September 11th 1836, declaring Bento Gonçalves as the president nominee. Gonçalves would then escape prison and return to the Rio-Grandense Republic to plead office in the same year.

The declaration of independence and the escape of Bento Gonçalves further contributed to the escalation of the conflict, enraging the imperial government, who decided to declare total war on the Ragamuffin rebels. On 3th December 1836, the Province of São Pedro do Rio Grande do Sul has it's autonomy taken away, and is put under direct control from the military and the central government of the Empire of Brazil. Strict legislation is passed, with any suspected rebel being rounded up and executed, along with the mass burning of crops and other resources by government troops, increasing the popularity of the rebels.

Still in 1836, Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi and his wife, Anita Garibaldi, join the rebels as military advisers. Garibaldi's strategy revolved around building a navy for the rebels, building ships in rebel-controlled territory (the Rio-Grandense Republic did not have direct access to the sea), and transporting them by using hundreds of cattle. Along with Garibaldi's help, the Uruguayan government supplied the rebels after Bento Gonçalves pleaded for help. This resulted in the Republic winning the battles of Rio Grande and Pelotas in early and late 1837, declaring Rio Grande the Republic's capital in the same year. This further enraged the Empire of Brazil, who sent a massive naval brigade to the city of Porto Alegre, leveling the city in the Massacre of Porto Alegre of 1838, taking it from the rebels.

The Revolution spread to the neighbouring province of Santa Catarina in 1839, with pro-Ragamuffin local elites, led by General David Canabarro, declaring the independence of the Juliana Republic. Interested in the potential weakening of the Brazilian influence in the area, the Argentinian government started to supply the rebels in the same year. This resulted in the Empire of Brazil invading Argentina in 1840, making the Ragamuffin War a now continental conflict. Shortly after, in 1841, the Brazilian soldiers arrested an American consul, suspected of contributing to the rebels, straining US-Brazil relations and ultimately ending with the United States joining the war in late 1841, supplying the rebels and using a large maritime fleet to bombard imperial cities. In 1846, the rebels took total control of Porto Alegre, enacting their "vengeance" against the city, which was seen as "pro-monarchy", killing nearly a thousand people, or 1/4 of the city's population at the time and renaming the defeated capital as Setembropólis. After one year of no progression in the war, the US naval fleet threatened to attack the imperial capital of Rio de Janeiro, ending with the surrender of the Brazilian Empire and its de facto recognition of the independence of both the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul and the Juliana Republic in 27th February 1848 by the Treaty of Poncho Verde.

First constitution, oligarchical confederation and national revolts

The newly independent Republics officialized their union in March 23rd 1848, enacting the 1848 Constitution of the Confederation, which put forth into existence the Pampas Confederation, comprising of the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul and the Free and Independent Catarinense Republic and their respective authorities. The "democratic" values enshrined in the Constitution actually gave way to an oligarchical republic ruled by the rural estanciero and the urban bourgeousie, who managed and approved policy as they saw fit, changing little in comparision to the previous Imperial government. In contrast to neighbouring countries, the nation's political system was somewhat more stable, with national elites agreeing between themselves and developing an efficient political rotation system, which would see one rural and another urban president in each of the Republics.

However, this political stability didn't equate to financial or social stability. Since it's inception by the Treaty of Poncho Verde, the Confederation accumulated numerous war debts with Argentina, Uruguay and the USA for their support in the war. The indebted nation would also face a violent rebellion in 1850, as numerous enslaved black people would rise up against the government, including former soldiers of the Ragamuffin army, in the Revolt of the Black Spearmen, due to the fact that the Republics promised abolition for them during the Ragamuffin War. The conflict lasted for nearly a year, with a weak and unorganized republican army being inefficient against the large contingent of rebels, leaving 1090 dead in the Confederation and resulting in a large scale extermination of the rebels, leaving more 5600 dead. The revolt would end in 1851, as the army organized itself efficiently with foreign help from the United States in exchange for a large section of the cattle industry.

The killing of large part of the enslaved workforce led to the Pampas Confederation buying more slaves, to the United Kingdom's dismay. Many restrictions would be imposed upon the slave trade business by british foreign influence, which empowered the industrial urban bourgeousie. The estancieros started to gradually replace the slave workforce with paid european immigrants, in an attempt to "whiten" the nation. As many as 90,000 Africans were brought to Rio Grande do Sul from 1851 to 1863, the year in which slavery was officially abolished in the Confederation.

In 1890, disagreements between the industrial elite of Rio Grande do Sul and the rural elite of Santa Catarina came to a head in the Railway Conflict. The main reason for the conflict was the opposition of the local elite to the building of a railway and planned cities along its lines. Such a project would take much of the land of the local estancieros, and would put it under administration of the Gaucho Railway Company, an american company. As the project was denied by the then president, Lauro Müller, the Rio-Grandense Republic imposed a mandate unto Santa Catarina and started to build the railway, heavily guarded by not only its own army, but by the US Army and a group of mercenaries. Müller, backed by local militias, then assaulted the city of Laguna and destroyed the railway project of the city in the Siege of Laguna, declaring the independence of Santa Catarina and its breakway from the confederation based on the Constitution of 1848 and its defense of regional autonomy.

The government of the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul responded swiftly and retook the city of Laguna in 1891, the US army helped with supplies, soldiers and navy, bombing many cities in the coast of Santa Catarina and taking large part of the rebels' land. As early 1892 settled in, the US and Rio-Grandense's navies threatened to bomb the capital city of Desterro. As a result, the rebels agreed to hold peace talks. It was then decided that Santa Catarina would be reintegrated into the Pampas Confederation and the railway would be built, but on the condition that the land used would be leased to the Gaucho Railway Company for 50 years and nearly half of the profit from the planned cities and railway would be reverted as royalties to the estancieros. It was also established that, for the next 90 years, all industry in Desterro could only be built and owned by the native bourgeousie.

After 38 years of relative stability, the effects of the Crash of 1910, exacerbated by the Great Depression led to large popular insatisfaction with the oligarchical regime, especially in newer sectors of the industrial borgeousie, giving way to anti-government groups and new ideologies. One of such ideologies was Salvationism, a Rio-Grandian derivate of Italian Fascism, Brazilian Integralism and caudillismo, preaching that a hardline military government that enforced traditional values, desenvolvementism and militarism would save the nation from the economic and cultural disaster that it faced. This ideology achieved a stronghold in the military, represented by Marshall Getúlio Vargas, who grouped together with his cousin, General Ernesto Dornelles and senator Osvaldo Aranha (ex-military), and couped the government in 1930, putting the National Salvation Regime in power. The first years of the junta were filled with diplomatic chaos as many of the American businesses in the Confederation were taken by the government and much of the American influence was contested.

The "Polaca", First Rio-Grandense Republic and Interregnum

In 1936, a new constitution is chartered for the nation, reflecting the quasi-fascist ideology of Salvationism, and based especially in the Polish Constitution of 1935, thus its nickname "Polaca". It dissolves the Pampas Confederation, extinguishing the Catarinense Republic and centralising power in the Rio-Grandense Republic, thus giving way to the First Rio-Grandense Republic. It also suspends a myriad of political rights, such as freedom of press, speech and voting rights. The army also centralised and modernised, local militias are now extinct. This generates some unrest throughtout the nation, especially in the Santa Catarina region, with its citizens and local elites protesting for their autonomy. Such protests would be crushed by the new Rio-Grandense army.

As the State got stronger, the economical policy of national desenvolvementism was applied, with large projects of industrialization and infrastructure being built by the State, along with the nationalization of several key sectors of the economy, such as oil.

Great Flood of 1941, coup and "Vargas period"

In 1941, due to extreme and unusual climatic conditions, such as extreme rainfall, the entire nation was struck by a large flood, which left a great number of its cities, including the capital of Setembropólis, ravaged by water. Military Leader Getúlio Vargas seized the opportunity to declare an State of Emergency. Both of the other Military Leaders were then prosecuted and sentenced for corruption and endangerment of the national security. As such, Vargas was now the sole leader of the National Salvation Regime and President of the Rio-Grandense Republic.

In the outside world, the USA awaited carefully for an opportunity to distance the south-american fascist regime from the Axis, especially with the start of the Second World War. After the flood, the American government started to negotiate with Vargas, offering money for the reconstruction of the Republic if the President aligned himself with the Allies, which he accepted. The capital city of Setembropólis was rebuilt, with a system of walls and anti-flood steel doors installed along the Guaíba river. Other cities also received anti-flood infrastructure, such as dikes and walls. Economic opening with the United States resulted in further economic growth and recuperation, even if at the cost of a ever widening gap between the rich and poor.

When the United States joined the Second World War in late 1941, so did the Rio-Grandense Republic. Nearly 100 thousand soldiers were sent to war against the Italian and German Government. Further recruiting was done to safeguard against the Brazilian Integralist Regime in the Border that Rio Grande do Sul shared with Brazil, even though Brazilian Leader Plínio Salgado stopped aligning with the Axis since 1940, after the USA threatened invading Brazil and firebombing the capital of Rio de Janeiro. The Rio-Grandense army achieved many victories against the Axis, such as in the battles of Scheldt, Nancy and Monte Cassino.

Post-war Rio Grande do Sul was marked by radical approximation with the United States and a strong alignment with anti-communism in the Cold War. Vargas Regime was extensively financed by the USA and the nation became a symbol of the "Capitalist Success" in South America, with many privatizations and loosening of economic restrictions being put into place. The Republic became a hub for American businessmen, being nicknamed as the "American Cassino" by opponents of the regime. Even though the Republic was one of the fastest-growing nations in the American continent, abject poverty was rampant (affecting 90% of the population), along with illiteracy (with 98% of the population being illiterate) and a large child mortality rate (390 per 1,000 births).

As such, popular insatisfaction with the Vargas regime constantly grew. Several socialist guerillas arised in the nation, resulting in stricter laws being approved by the Government. In 1948, a large number of these guerillas united into the MP-1-12 (People's Movement of December 1st), headed by Luís Carlos Prestes.

People's Insurrection, American invasion and socialist government

In 1951, Argentinian medical student Che Guevara starts travelling throughout South American by motorbike. In early 1952, he visits Rio Grande do Sul and after seeing the conditions of the nation, joins the MP-1-12 movement. Che quickly rises through the ranks as a expert Military Advisor, winning a large number of battles against the Vargas government. By late 1952, large popular insatisfaction (which led to more and more people joining the guerilla) and Che's expertise led to the final blow to the National Salvation Regime, the People's Insurrection of 1953. The capital was quickly overtaken by the rebels, and President Getúlio Vargas exiled himself in neighboring Brazil.

The American government partnered with Vargas and the Brazilian Integralist regime to attempt a takeover of Rio Grande do Sul. This started the conflict that would be later known as the Gaucho Revolutionary War, with its most important event being the invasion of Setembropólis, forcing the rebels to move the capital to the city of Rio Grande. The new revolutionary government approached itself more and more with the Soviet government, which officially declared support for the socialist guerrillas in 1955, sending aid in various forms. The capital was retaken in the same year, but was lost again in December. The Warsaw Pact involved itself more and more with the conflict, as did NATO, due to the US fear of a socialist regime in the American continent. By 1957, as tension escalated, the USSR transported nuclear missiles and submarines to Rio Grande do Sul, which led to the Rio-Grandense Missile Crisis. After nearly 2 months of negotiations, the American government agreed to stop the invasion of Rio Grande do Sul and remove nuclear missiles from Turkey, as long as the Soviet government didnt place troops, missiles or its navy on Gaucho territory.

The new Socialist Republic, under Premier Luís Carlos Prestes, quickly became a "ideological showcase" for the USSR, which poured billions in investments in the reconstruction and economy of Rio Grande do Sul, this led to the Socialist period being one of the most prosperous times in Gaucho history. Massive infrastructure was built for all purposes, from housing to flood containment, employement was nearly universal, universities were developed into the biggest hubs of science in South America, leading to Rio Grande do Sul being one of richest economies in the Second World, growing a staggering 15% by year. This generated unrest throughout capitalist Latin American nations, which were exploited by American imperialism. This resulted in the US investing in numerous anti-communist coups and dictatorships on the region.

However, the Socialist government was also extremely authoritarian. Censorship of ideologies considered "capitalistic" or "imperialist" was engraved into law, along with the pervasive vigilance of citizens by the Min-sen (Ministry of National Security), trained by the Stasi. Torture by the Rio-grandian regime was, unlike neighboring dictatorships, mostly psychological, using of the "Morte-viva" method (directly inspired by the East German "Zersetzung"). Upon Prestes's end of term in 1970, the government headed by Premier Leonel Brizola saw relaxation of a few restrictions, such as civil rights being amplified and media from other capitalist South American countries being allowed.

It was under Brizola that Rio Grande do Sul socialist experiment reached its peak prosperity. As Brizola left his position in 1984, he gave way to the last two Premiers of the Republic (Eloy Martins and João Goulart).

Revolution of the Roses, Second Rio-Grandense Republic and Constitutional Crisis

The economy, burndened by external debt, inefficiencies in centralised planning and the fall of the Eastern Bloc, suffered a crisis in 1987, which would lead to a decrease in living standards and shortages of several basic necessities. In 1992, several members of the military and civil society led the Revolution of the Roses, which deposed the Socialist government and installed economically liberal Pedro Simon in charge. The Socialist Republic was officially dissolved four months later, with the Second Rio-Grandense Republic being declared in its place.

However, due to the Russian "Shock Therapy"-inspired policies by the liberal government, which included mass privatization, mass firings and other measures, the new government suffered large rejection from much of the population, loosing popularity quickly. To worsen matters, the new polemic Constitution of 1994 promoted even more unpopular reforms, removing the rights for housing, education and even healthcare from the population and leaving them at the hands of the market. The same year saw the population revolting itself against the government, with socialists, social-democrats and even a few salvationists rallying against the liberal government. While moderate democratic socialists composed the Coalition for 21st Century Socialism, hardliners and other radical leftists chose armed fighting and organized themselves in the Communist League, which would commit many bombings and shootings until it's dissolution in 1999. Rural workers organized in their own armed movement, the Peasant's Army, which lasted until 2009, when the government negotiated with the rebels and conceded many policies to the group, integrating it into national politics. Another prominent guerrilla that surfaced in the Constitutional Crisis was the Armed Movement David Canabarro, which aims for the independence of Santa Catarina as a Republic through armed means. The conflict was diminished by the government through military intervention, launched in 2004 to quell the violence, but it still persists today.

The Coalition for 21st Century Socialism ultimately won the popular support, advocating for a mixed economy with a large net of social welfare and protectionism. It's deputees were the ones who drafted most of the current Constitution of Rio Grande do Sul, declared in 1998. Mass subsidizing of the economy and installment of numerous tech companies in the Republic led to a period of extreme economic growth, with Rio Grande do Sul reaching the status of a high-income country in 2005.

Today, although the nation is the highest income economy in South America and it's most developed nation by HDI, it suffers from ever-increasing demographic inversion, and its economic growth seems to be coming to a stagnating point.

Geography

The Republic of Rio Grande do Sul occupies an area of 340,668 km², being 66th largest nation in the World, and has a time zone of -3 hours in relation to GMT world time.

Its entire territory is south of the Tropic of Capricorn. It borders Brazil, to the north, Uruguay to the south and Argentina to both North and West. It is bathed by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and has one of the largest lagoons in the world: Lagoa dos Patos, which has brackish water. It's northernmost department, Santa Catarina, is composed of inumerous rainforest-inhabited hills and canyons, whilst it's southernmost department, Arroio Sur, is permeated by pampas, a range of grass plains.

Geology and topography

The Republic of Rio Grande do Sul has, for the most part, low topography, with sixty percent of its territory at less than 300 m in altitude. The only elevated portion, with more than 600 m of altitude, in the northern department of Santa Catarina, comprises 20% of the total surface. Five morphological units can be described in the state: the coastal plain, the southeastern dissected plateau, the central depression and the basaltic plateau.

Also known as coastal plain. The entire eastern façade of the nation is occupied by the coastal plain, which consists of sandy terrain measuring approximately 500 km in length in the northeast-southwest direction and with very variable width. The sands develop on both the eastern and western banks of the Patos and Mirim lagoons. These lagoons have a characteristic design, with a lobed shape, due to the sand points that project into them from both banks. Unlike what happens inside the lagoons, the coastline has a regular outline. The coastal plain is made up of the juxtaposition of coastal ridges (restingas), which sometimes leave empty spaces between them occupied by elongated lagoons or marshes (former closed lagoons).

Also improperly called Southeastern mountains, the southeastern dissected plateau comprises a set of undulations whose highest level does not exceed 500 m. It is an ancient plateau, whose tabular surface has only been preserved between some rivers. These Precambrian lands constitute the so-called Rio Grande do Sul shield and occupy the entire southeast portion of the country, forming a triangular area whose vertices correspond approximately to the cities of Porto Alegre, Dom Pedrito and Jaguarão. The complex is divided, by the Camaquã river valley, into two large units, one to the north and the other to the south, called the Herval and Tapes mountains, respectively. It is the typical domain of the campinas, whose best expression is found in the Gaucho campaign