The Brazilian nobility (Portuguese : nobreza do Brasil) refers to the titled aristocrats and fidalgo people and families recognized by the Kingdom of Brazil and later, by the Empire of Brazil, dating back to the early 19th century, when Brazil ceased to be a colony of the Kingdom of Portugal. It held official status until 1889, when a military coup d'état overthrew the monarchy and established the First Brazilian Republic.
| Titles |
 Dukedoms of Brazil |
 Marquisates of Brazil |
 Counties of Brazil |
 Viscountcies of Brazil |
 Baronies of Brazil |
The Brazilian nobility originated from the Portuguese nobility, during the time of colonial Brazil; the noble titles were a sign of political power among the elite. Some of the nobles were members of Portuguese noble lineages and even of the high nobility, especially the families that arrived during the first centuries of the colonization of Bahia, Sergipe, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The elevation of Brazil to the status of Kingdom, under the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves in 1815, led to the creation of the first Brazilian noble titles. With the Independence of Brazil from Portugal in 1822, the Empire of Brazil established its own system of nobility.
According to the Brazilian Constitution of 1824, only the Emperor had the right to confer titles and ranks on non-nobles. Unlike the former Portuguese and Luso-Brazilian titles—and most systems of aristocracy—a Brazilian noble title was only for the holder's lifetime and could not be inherited, similar to a British life peer. [1] All nobles, regardless of title and rank, were entitled to the style of Excellency . [2]
During the reign of Dom Pedro II and the advent of the commercialization of coffee, it was the great coffee-growers who began to collect such titles, being acquaintances of the coffee barons. According to Affonso de Taunay, around 300 holders had their income linked to coffee: farmers, bankers and traders. The title of baron thus became a symbol of the legitimization of local power, making those who held it intermediaries between the people and the government.
During this period the Brazilian Imperial Family sought to efface republican sentiments with a wide distribution of titles, mainly among important political leaders in the provinces, some aristocrats and also members of provincial oligarchies; 114 were awarded in 1888, and 123 in 1889.[ citation needed ]
With the proclamation of the republic in 1889, the aristocracy was abolished and all Brazilian titles of nobility were banned. It was also prohibited, under penalty of accusation of high treason and the suspension of political rights, to accept noble titles and foreign decorations without the permission of the State. However, nobles of greater distinction, out of respect and tradition, were allowed to use their titles during the republican regime; a well-known example is the Baron of Rio Branco.[ citation needed ] The Imperial Family was not allowed to return until 1921, when the Law of Exile was repealed by President Epitácio Pessoa.
To be qualified for ennoblement, one could not be of illegitimate birth, be previously charged for lese-majeste, or have a history of engagement in a mechanical trade or be of "impure" blood (e.g., Jewish ancestry, the law of sangre pura).[ citation needed ] Most had to pay a large sum for the conferral of noble status (the Portuguese monarchs sold titles for payment to raise funds giving Portugal many nobles, 600+ families, for a small population), even if titles passed to their descendants.[ citation needed ]
A recipient had to pay the following fees depending on the title given, in contos de réis, according to the table of April 2, 1860: [3]
| Register Value in 1860 | |
|---|---|
| Title | Value |
| Duke | 2:450$000 |
| Marquis | 2:020$000 |
| Count | 1:575$000 |
| Viscount | 1:025$000 |
| Baron | 750$000 |
In addition to these amounts, there were the following costs:
A list of possible grantees was drawn up by the Council of Ministers, with recommendations from their colleagues, provincial presidents, other nobles, politicians, senior officials, and other influential people. The lists were sent to the approval of the Emperor, being presented, twice a year: December 2, the anniversary of the Emperor; March 14 or 25, respectively, the anniversary of the Empress and the anniversary of the oath of the Constitution of the Brazilian Empire of 1824 —the first Brazilian constitutional charter.
Some Brazilian nobles were given the distinction "with grandeeship," which allowed them to use in their coat of arms the crown of the next higher title—for example, a baron could wear the viscount's coronet on his coat of arms. Also, a Grandee of the Empire enjoyed other privileges and precedence that holders of the next superior title enjoyed. The grandeeship was conferred on 135 barons, who used the viscomital coronet in their coats of arms, and 146 viscounts, who used the comital coronet.
All records of the nobility were made in the books of the Office of Nobility and Knighthood until 1848, when they disappeared under unexplained circumstances. At the time, they were the responsibility of Possidonio da Fonseca Costa, the then-King of Arms, which greatly hindered the registration of noble titles granted during the First Reign of the Empire. Luis Aleixo Boulanger, his successor, sought to recover part of this documentation, producing a single book with part of the first generation of the Brazilian nobility.
Throughout the entirety of the Empire's existence, 1,211 titles of nobility were created: 3 dukes, 47 marquises, 51 counts, 235 viscounts and 875 barons. The total number of recipients, however, was lower—around 980—as many received more than one title. These numbers are not entirely accurate, as there are doubts about the validity and even the existence of some titles. Much of this doubt stems from the loss of some of the records of the Office of Nobility and Knighthood during the Brazilian First Republic.
Brazilian nobility comprised also a large body of untitled nobles, some ennobled for life by holding civic or military offices, and others by tradition. In the first class stood all people distinguished by imperial honorific orders; all officers-majors (oficiais-mores) working for the Court; [4] high military officers; [5] high magistrates such as State councillors, judges, senators and ministers, as well as big merchants, lawyers and doctors of liberal arts. [6] [7] [8] The second group of hereditary untitled nobility was comprised by the landed gentry. [9]
 | Emperor (Imperador) |  | Prince Imperial of Brazil (Príncipe Imperial do Brasil) |  | Prince of Grão-Pará (Príncipe do Grão-Pará) |  | Prince of Brazil (Príncipe do Brasil) |
 | Duke (Duque) |  | Marquis (Marquês) |  | Count (Conde) |  | Viscount (Visconde) | | Baron (Barão) |
The Empire of Brazil was a 19th-century state that broadly comprised the territories which form modern Brazil and Uruguay until the latter achieved independence in 1828. The empire's government was a representative parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the rule of Emperors Pedro I and his son Pedro II. A colony of the Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil became the seat of the Portuguese Empire in 1808, when the Portuguese Prince regent, later King Dom John VI, fled from Napoleon's invasion of Portugal and established himself and his government in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. John VI later returned to Portugal, leaving his eldest son and heir-apparent, Pedro, to rule the Kingdom of Brazil as regent. On 7 September 1822, Pedro declared the independence of Brazil and, after waging a successful war against his father's kingdom, was acclaimed on 12 October as Pedro I, the first Emperor of Brazil. The new country was huge, sparsely populated, and ethnically diverse.
Grandee is an official aristocratic title conferred on some Spanish nobility. Holders of this dignity enjoyed similar privileges to those of the peerage of France during the Ancien Régime, though in neither country did they have the significant constitutional political role the House of Lords gave to the Peerage of England, of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom. A "grandee of Spain" nonetheless enjoyed greater social privileges than those of other similar European dignities.
José Maria da Silva Paranhos Júnior, Baron of Rio Branco was a Brazilian noble, diplomat, geographer, historian, politician and professor, considered to be the "father of Brazilian diplomacy". He was the son of statesman José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco. The Baron of Rio Branco was a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, occupying its 34th chair from 1898 until his death in 1912. As a representative of Brazil, he managed to peacefully resolve all Brazil's border disputes with its South American neighbours and incorporate 900 thousand square kilometers through his diplomacy alone.
Alfredo Maria Adriano d'Escragnolle Taunay, Viscount of Taunay, was a Brazilian writer, musician, professor, military engineer, historian, politician, sociologist and nobleman. He is famous for the regionalist novel Inocência, considered a major forerunner of naturalism in Brazil, and for A Retirada da Laguna, an account of an episode in the Paraguayan War. The Brazilianist Leslie Bethell has described it as "the one undoubted literary masterpiece produced by the Paraguayan War".
Prince Gaston of Orleans, Count of Eu was a French prince and military commander who fought in the Hispano-Moroccan War and the Paraguayan War. He was the first son of Louis, Duke of Nemours and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and was married to Princess Isabel, daughter of Pedro II of Brazil and heiress to the Brazilian throne.
José Maria da Silva Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco, was a Brazilian politician, monarchist, diplomat, teacher and journalist. Rio Branco was born in Salvador, in what was then the Captaincy of Bahia, to a wealthy family, but most of the fortune was lost after his parents' deaths early in his childhood. In 1871, Rio Branco became the president of the Council of Ministers for the first time. He would become the Council's longest-serving president, and his cabinet the second longest, in Brazilian history. His government was marked by a time of economic prosperity and the enactment of several reforms. The most important of these initiatives was the Law of Free Birth, which granted freeborn status to children born to slave women. Rio Branco led the government that enacted this law, and its passage increased his popularity. His government was plagued by a long crisis with the Catholic Church that resulted from the expulsion of Freemasons from its lay brotherhoods. After more than four years heading the Cabinet, Rio Branco resigned in 1875. Following a long vacation in Europe, his health swiftly declined and he was diagnosed with oral cancer. Rio Branco died in 1880 and was widely mourned throughout the country. He is regarded by most historians as one of Brazil's greatest statesmen.
The Imperial Order of Our Lord Jesus Christ, often simply named Order of Christ, is an order of chivalry instituted by emperor Pedro I of Brazil on 7 December 1822, on the basis of the Portuguese Order of Christ founded by King Dom Dinis and Pope John XXII in 1316–1319.
The Imperial Order of the Rose was a Brazilian order of chivalry, instituted by Emperor Pedro I of Brazil on 17 October 1829 to commemorate his marriage to Amélie of Leuchtenberg.
Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná was a Brazilian politician, diplomat, judge and monarchist. Paraná was born to a noble family in São Carlos do Jacuí, in what was then the captaincy of Minas Gerais. After attending the University of Coimbra in Portugal and having returned to Brazil, Paraná was appointed a judge in 1826 and later elevated to appellate court justice. In 1830, he was elected to represent Minas Gerais in the Chamber of Deputies; he was re-elected in 1834 and 1838, and held the post until 1841.
Manuel Marques de Sousa, Count of Porto Alegre, nicknamed "the Gloved Centaur", was an army officer, politician and abolitionist of the Empire of Brazil. Born into a wealthy family of military background, Manuel Marques de Sousa joined the Portuguese Army in Brazil in 1817 when he was little more than a child. His military initiation occurred in the conquest of the Banda Oriental, which was annexed and became the southernmost Brazilian province of Cisplatina in 1821. For most of the 1820s, he was embroiled in the Brazilian effort to keep Cisplatina as part of its territory: first during the struggle for Brazilian independence and then in the Cisplatine War. It would ultimately prove a futile attempt, as Cisplatina successfully separated from Brazil to become the independent nation of Uruguay in 1828.
Pedro II of Brazil was the second and last emperor of Brazil. Despite his popularity among Brazilians, Pedro II was removed from his throne in 1889 after a 58-year reign. He was promptly exiled with his family. Despite his deposition, he did not make an attempt to regain power. He died in late 1891 while in Paris, France, after two years in exile.
Joaquim José Inácio, Viscount of Inhaúma, was a naval officer, politician and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. He was born in the Kingdom of Portugal, and his family moved to Brazil two years later. After Brazilian independence in 1822, Inhaúma enlisted in the Brazilian navy. Early in his career during the latter half of the 1820s, he participated in the subduing of secessionist rebellions: first the Confederation of the Equator, and then the Cisplatine War, which precipitated a long international armed conflict with the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata.
Events in the year 1891 in Brazil.
Brazilian heraldry as a distinct form of heraldry dates to 1822, when Brazil became independent as an Empire, under the reign of the House of Braganza. Being formerly a part of the Portuguese Empire and being ruled by the same Royal House that reigned in Portugal, Brazilian heraldry followed the tradition of Portuguese heraldry.
The Imperial Brazilian Army was the name given to the land force of the Empire of Brazil. The Brazilian Army was formed after the independence of the country from Portugal in 1822 and reformed in 1889, after the republican coup d'état that created the First Brazilian Republic, a dictatorship headed by the army.
The movement for the re-adoption of monarchy in Brazil has taken place as a series of uprisings and political acts, usually in a fragmented way and peripherally to larger causes. It has been important historically and remains a fast-growing active movement to this day. It advocates restoration of the constitutional monarchy under the Brazilian imperial family, a cadet branch of the House of Braganza, which ruled Brazil for 72 years as the kingdom and later Empire of Brazil until the monarchy was abolished in 1889 by a military coup d'état that gave rise to the First Brazilian Republic.
Afonso Celso de Assis Figueiredo Júnior, titled Count of Afonso Celso by the Holy See, better known as Afonso Celso, was a teacher, poet, historian and Brazilian politician. He is one of the founders of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, where he occupied the chair number 36.
Francisco de Lima e Silva was a Brazilian military officer and politician who served twice as regent of the Empire of Brazil during the minority of emperor Pedro II.
Thesouro de Nobreza is a manuscript dated 1675, which was created during the reign of Afonso VI of Portugal, the twenty-second king of Portugal. The work is an armorial, which is a collection of heraldic arms and was commissioned by Francisco Coelho, the King of Arms for Portuguese India, who appears on the title page.
Joaquim Henrique de Araújo, 1st Viscount of Pirassununga, was a Brazilian nobleman.
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