Adelmar I of Maracao
| Adelmar I | |
|---|---|
 Portrait by Tomás Braga, 1889 | |
| Emperor of Maracao | |
| Reign | 22 November 1884 – 9 July 1932 |
| Coronation | 7 December 1884 |
| Predecessor | Position established Buscarello d'Ormea as (President of the Centralist Republic of Marirana) |
| Successor | Renato Guimarães (as President of the Republic of Maracao) |
| Born | 14 April 1857 Porto d'Oriente, Manassa, Marirana |
| Died | 2 January 1949 (aged 91) Hammarvik, Eldmark |
| Burial | |
| Spouse |
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| Issue (among others) |
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| House | Estremoz |
| Father | Gabriel Branco |
| Mother | Sílvia Sequeira |
| Religion | Solarian Catholic |
Adelmar Veríssimo Branco de Estremoz, crowned as Adelmar I, was a Maracan soldier and early independence activist who was coronated as the first and only Empreror of Maracao, reigning from Maracao's independence date in 1884 to the official revocation of his title as Emperor in 1932, although he had lost power in Maracao since 1930. Nicknamed Adelmar the Unholy by the revolutionaries who established the Republic of Maracao, Adelmar is regarded as an oppressive and greedy ruler, who squandered most of Maracao's wealth for his own personal gain during his rule, and executing many who questioned his authority.
Adelmar led the only independent island Arucian state throughout his rule, often flaunting his power as Emperor with exquisite displays of wealth, and is reported to have imported an elephant from Bahia, which he rode around the island. Adelmar married Eldmarkian princess Ester in 1884, but after she bore him two daughters and no sons, he had her executed for treason. Re-marrying local middle-class woman Anna Valente in 1894, he would go on to have six more sons, totalling eight children in total. Throughout the 1910s he attempted to lead an intensive modernisation campaign in Maracao, which ended in complete disaster and destroyed much of the rural Maracan population, leading to a farmer's revolt in 1916, which Adelmar brutally suppressed. Adelmar declared war on Marirana in support of the Grand Alliance in 1926, leading a series of bloody landing campaigns which saw thousands of Maracan conscripts, many as young as 16, lose their lives on the Mariranan coast. Adelmar left the country for X in 1929 as the threat of Mariranan invasion loomed, and had lost all power back in Maracao by 1930 as the country was occupied. Adelmar still claimed the title of Emperor of Maracao, but most historians end his reign in 1932 when his title was made redundant by the Mariranan government. Adelmar was barred from returning to Maracao after Liberação and died in X in 1949.
An official request was made by the socialist Maracan government in 1974 for the return of the remains of Adelmar for museum display. The request was granted as his remains arrived in Porto Leste a year later. The remains currently stand in the Museu Nacional de História Revolucionária in the city, under constant surveillance after one of his fingers were severed and stolen in 1980. Most historians regard Adelmar as one of the worst monarchs in Asterian history, with the longevity and brutality of his reign directly leading to the country's socialist revolution in 1934.
Early life
Adelmar Veríssimo Branco de Estremoz was born in Porto Leste (then named Porto d'Oriente) in the Mariranan territory of Manassa on April 14, 1857, to father Gabriel Branco, who was a merchant of Estmerish descent, and mother Sílvia Sequeira, who was not employed herself but regularly accompanied her husband in mercantile affairs. Due to his father's occupation, Adelmar travelled much of the Asterias at an early age, including much of the Arucian, spending two years in Cuanstad in the Estmerish colony of Imagua between 1860 and 1862. Moving back to Maracao for Adelmar's education, he would spend much of his early years travelling from school to school, and was expelled twice from two different schools for unacceptable behaviour. Eventually settling down at a military academy in Nova Casa at the age of 11, and spending the rest of his education there before having a short stint in the Mariranan army between 16 and 18, after which he was discharged for incompetence.
Independence activism
Aged 19, Adelmar joined the Frente para a Liberação da Maraçã ("Front for Maracan Liberation"), an underground political party and activist group campaigning for the independence of Maracao. Adelmar was arrested in 1879 and imprisoned briefly for attempting to disrupt a battalion of Mariranan soldiers on the island, and was released in 1880 after serving only 3 months. The party had not yet been exposed to the Mariranan authorities and Adelmar continued as a member of the party when he was released. After around six years of attempts to disrupt Maririran rule of the island, extremely unsuccessfully, the party was disbanded in 1882. However, following Mariranan entry into the War of the Arucian, Adelmar reformed the party with himself at the helm, now aged 26, and recruited many civilians to fight for Maracan independence. Armed by raiding Mariranan barracks and using Estmerish and Gaullican weapons that had been shipped to the island to attack Marirana from the inside, Adelmar and the FLM launched a period of armed resistance throughout the island during the War of the Arucian, which was relatively successful as a guerrilla campaign and rid the islands of Mariranan forces multiple times. Maracao was eventually granted its independence in the Treaty of Aquinas that ended the War of the Arucian in Marirana, and Adelmar was crowned as its inaugural emperor, and was initially supported in his rule by Estmere and Gaullica, although this support had essentially faded by 1890.