Pedro II deposed - November 15 1889

On this day in 1889, Pedro II, Brazil's last emperor, was deposed.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class. It's a production of I
Heart Radio. Hi everyone, I'm Eves and you're listening to
This Day in History Class, a podcast where we build
the time machine and all you have to do is
hop in. Today is November nineteen. The day was November

(00:25):
eighty nine. Pedro the Second, Brazil's second and last emperor,
was deposed after reigning for half a century. Pedro the
Second was the son of Pedro the First, the first
Emperor of Brazil, who had also reigned briefly as the
King of Portugal. In eight thirty one, after his autocratic
rules stoke a lot of opposition and uprisings, Pedro the

(00:48):
First abdicated in favor of his son, but the younger
Pedro was only five years old at the time. He
had the title to the throne, but Brazil would be
ruled by a regency and he turned eighteen. But as
the younger Pedro dove into his education, Brazil was crumbling
under an unstable regency. When Pedro was just fourteen years old,

(01:11):
Parliament declared that he was of age and that he
accepted the oath that made him Emperor Pedro the Second,
So he was still young. His coronation brought more stability
to Brazil, since people saw him as a legitimate authority.
The next several years were a period of learning for Pedro,
who was prepared to rule by a group of experienced politicians.

(01:33):
Many of the people who lived in Brazil were enslaved,
and the plantations produced sugar, cocao hides, coffee, and salted
meat for export. Pedro the Second changed the economy so
that coffee replaced sugar as Brazil's biggest export. The agricultural
industry was expanded and development was extensive in the mining,

(01:55):
ship building, and railroad industries. Telegraph lines and sewers were installed.
Improvements were also made to the education system. All these
changes brought in more foreign investment. Pedro the Second also
moved to abolished slavery in Brazil, to the opposition of
Brazil's planters. The Caro's Law of eighteen fifty wasn't act

(02:16):
by the Brazilian parliament to make the slave trade illegal.
In eighteen seventy one, he declared that all children born
to enslaved people would be freed after a period of servitude.
Slavery in Brazil, though was not abolished until eighteen eighty eight,
a year before Pedro's deposition. Economic growth and progress toward
abolition brought a lot of European immigrants to Brazil. The

(02:41):
abolition of slavery did not cause a civil war, as
Pedro the Second had feared, but it did transform the
economy and upset the people and provinces who relied on
the labor of enslaved people for their economic prosperity. Another
conflict of Brazil became embroiled in in the mid to
late eighteen hundreds was a Paraguay and War, which lasted

(03:01):
from eighteen sixty four to eighteen seventy and pitt Paraguay
against the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. The
Paraguay was defeated in the war. It cost Brazil a
lot of money, resulted in thousands of deaths, and put
many reforms on hold. Still, Brazilian nationalism was high and

(03:21):
Pedro was popular, but the rising number of European immigrants
were not happy with the monarchy itself. Republicanism began gaining
steam in eighteen seventy, and the movement grew as the
free press continued to criticize the regime. Military officers, immigrants
and capitalist farmers became disenchanted with the emperor and began

(03:42):
to view the monarchy as an outdated hindrance to progress.
Pedro also had strained relations with the Catholic Church, which
had great influence in Brazil, as Catholicism was the state religion,
and Pedro's health was declining, affecting his participation in a
room at affairs. Princess Isabel, Pedro's only child and his

(04:04):
legally acknowledged successor, was not thrilled about taking the throne,
and Pedro did not see her as fit for the job.
As Pedro alienated segments of the military and growing middle
class discontentment with the emperor group, and he lacked a
serious dedication to his role as emperor, pursuing more passionately
his intellectual activities. He even confessed that he had an

(04:28):
inclination for republicanism and appeared apathetic towards the survival of
the monarchy. Pedro the Second was overthrown in the Bloodless
Coup on November nine, and the next day the republic
was proclaimed. On the seventeen, the royal family was exiled.
Pedro died in Paris two years later. The Republican regime

(04:50):
that followed the fall of Pedro. The second was marked
by dictatorships and social and economic instability. I'm Eve Jeffcote
and hopefully you know a little more about history today
than you did it yesterday. You can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
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(05:11):
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