The departure of Dom Pedro I from the imperial government revealed the tensions and instabilities that marked the process of formation of the Brazilian State. On the other hand, this same event helped Brazilians gain greater space in Brazilian political life at that time. Until then, several Portuguese occupied public political positions of paramount importance and determined that forms a relative exclusion of some national political agents who participated in our process of emancipation.
In this new context, we see the formation of political parties that offered different projects for conducting national political life after the emperor's departure. When talking about the existence of these political parties, we should not imagine that they were organized in a formal way, as we see today. Generally, the supporters were people from social classes close to each other and who, on different occasions, gathered to debate the forms of organization of the Brazilian nation.
Among the various trends presented at the time, we see that the so-called “restorers”, also known as “caramurus” were the most conservative at the time. Formed essentially by the figure of Portuguese traders, bureaucrats and soldiers, these defended the return of Emperor Dom Pedro I to Brazil. They also defended a strongly centralized monarchical regime and strongly criticized the other political parties of the time.
Popularly referred to as “chimangos”, moderate liberals did not sympathize with the absolutist regime and counted on the presence of aristocrats from the south-central portion of the country. Despite not agreeing with absolutism, they defended the maintenance of a monarchic regime capable of defending the interests of the country's agro-export elite. They sought to balance the increase in the functions of the Legislative Power with a monarchical authority that showed itself to be committed to national elites.
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More heterogeneous in their social formation, the exalted liberals – also known as farroupilhas or jurujubas – believed that the autonomy of the provinces should be increased. Made up of small merchants and wealthy free men, this party had a relative influence among the urban popular layers of the national territory. Among other things, they called for broader political reforms, the end of the Council of State and the Moderating Power and, in some more extreme cases, the creation of a Republic.
Over time, the political hegemony exercised by moderate liberals ended up giving rise to a new subdivision that generated the regressive and progressive parties. The first had a more conservative orientation, while the progressives believed in the need to make some concessions to the exalted ones. In fact, this dialogue with the more liberal groups ended up establishing the approval of the Additional Act of 1834, which gave greater freedom to the provinces.
When the Second Reign arrived, Brazilian political trends were essentially polarized between the Liberal Party, of progressive origin, and the Conservative Party, organized by trend politicians regressive. In this context, we ended up realizing that the parties that were consolidated in the national political scenario had few differences between them. After all, a large part of the political figures of that period shared the same social origin.
By Rainer Sousa
Master in History
Brazil School Team
Governing Period - Brazil Monarchy
history of Brazil - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SOUSA, Rainer Gonçalves. "The parties of the Regency Period"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiab/os-partidos-periodo-regencial.htm. Accessed on July 27, 2021.