page_title: Pedro Afonso, Prince Imperial of Brazil
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Pedro Afonso, Prince Imperial of Brazil / Infancy and early death / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: Português: P. G. Bertichem - 1856 - Convento de Santo Antônio do Largo da Carioca no Rio de Janeiro
context_page_description: Dom Pedro Afonso was the Prince Imperial and heir apparent to the throne of the Empire of Brazil. Born at the Palace of São Cristóvão in Rio de Janeiro, he was the second son and youngest child of Emperor Dom Pedro II and Dona Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, and thus a member of the Brazilian branch of the House of Braganza. Pedro Afonso was seen as vital to the future viability of the monarchy, which had been put in jeopardy by the death of his older brother Dom Afonso almost three years earlier.
  Pedro Afonso's death from fever at the age of one devastated the Emperor, and the imperial couple had no further children. Pedro Afonso's older sister Dona Isabel became heiress, but Pedro II was unconvinced that a woman could ever be accepted as monarch by the ruling elite. He excluded Isabel from matters of state and failed to provide training for her possible role as empress. With no surviving male children, the Emperor came to understand that the imperial line was destined to end with his own death.
context_section_description: Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão (later Marquis of Paraná), one of Brazil's leading politicians and then serving as president (governor) of the province of Pernambuco, summarized the prevalent view among Brazil's ruling elite regarding the succession of the Empire when he addressed the Provincial Assembly: "It is my painful duty to inform you of the death of the Prince Imperial D. Pedro Afonso, which occurred on 10 January of the current year. It is the second time we lose the heir presumptive of the crown." Honório Hermeto continued: "It must serve as a consolation to us, the certainty of [good] health of H[is]. M[ajesty]. the Emperor and his august wife. Both in the prime of their years, and full of life, still promise both numerous fruits from their conjugal bed as well as a male succession to the crown, as required for both the consolidation of our still recent institutions and the restless spirit of the century."
  What no one could foresee was that Pedro II and Teresa Cristina would have no more children. The reason is unknown, although scholars think it is probably because they no longer had sexual intercourse. The Emperor was devastated by the death of Pedro Afonso and was never able to cope with it entirely. According to historian Roderick J. Barman, Pedro II was "deeply affected, emotionally and intellectually". The Emperor wrote a sonnet that expressed his feelings:
  But who can recount what feels the broken soul
  
  of the father from whom, of God, your sword cuts off
  
  the flower of his future, the beloved child.
  In the Emperor's eyes, the deaths of his sons seemed to presage the end of the imperial system. His younger son had represented his future and that of the monarchy. Although the Emperor still had a legal successor in his daughter Isabel, he had little confidence that a woman could rule Brazil in the male-dominated social climate of the time. He did nothing to prepare Isabel for the responsibilities of ascending the throne, nor did he attempt to encourage acceptance of a female ruler among the political class. The lack of a male heir caused him to lose motivation in promoting the imperial office as a position to be carried on by his descendants; he increasingly saw the imperial system as so inextricably linked to himself that it could not survive him.
caption: Convent of Saint Anthony, where prince Pedro Afonso is buried, 1856
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