page_title: Early life of Pedro II of Brazil
section_title: Accession
hierarchical_section_title: Early life of Pedro II of Brazil / The Regency / Accession
caption_attribution_description: Português: Retrato de Dom Pedro II
context_page_description: The early life of Pedro II of Brazil covers the period from his birth on 2 December 1825 until 18 July 1841, when he was crowned and consecrated. Born in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II was the youngest and only surviving male child of Dom Pedro I, first emperor of Brazil, and his wife Dona Leopoldina, archduchess of Austria. From birth, he was heir to his father's throne and was styled Prince Imperial. As member of the Brazilian Royalty, he held the honorific title "Dom".
  Pedro II's mother died when he was one year old, and his father remarried, to Amélie of Leuchtenberg, a couple years later. Pedro II formed a strong bond with Empress Amélie, whom he considered to be his mother throughout the remainder of his life. When Pedro I abdicated on 7 April 1831 and departed to Europe with Amélie, Pedro II was left behind with his sisters and became the second emperor of Brazil. He was raised with simplicity but received an exceptional education towards shaping what Brazilians then considered an ideal ruler. The sudden and traumatic loss of his parents, coupled with a lonely and unhappy upbringing, greatly affected Pedro II and shaped his character.
context_section_description: When the five-year-old Pedro awoke on 7 April 1831, beside him on the bed lay his father's imperial crown. Pedro I and his wife had already left Brazilian soil and boarded the British frigate Warspite. Pedro II wrote a letter of farewell to his father aided by Mariana de Verna. On receipt of this, a tearful Pedro I composed a reply, calling the little boy "My beloved son, and my Emperor." His father and stepmother remained on board the Warspite another five days before leaving for Europe, but they did not see the young emperor during that period … or ever again. For the remainder of his life, Pedro I would become distressed upon his children's absences and fretted about their futures. Pedro II missed his father and stepmother (who had assumed his mother's role), and this may account for his later lack of any emotional display in public. In fact, the "sudden loss of his family was to haunt Pedro II throughout his life". Three of his sisters stayed behind in Brazil with Pedro II: Januária, Paula and Francisca.
  Pedro II was acclaimed as the new Brazilian Emperor on 9 April. Bewildered by his parents' abandonment and frightened by the large crowds and thundering artillery salutes, he wept inconsolably as he was taken, with Mariana de Verna at his side, by carriage up to the City Palace. The frightened young Emperor was displayed along with his sisters at one of the windows of the palace. He stood atop a chair so that he could be seen by the assembled thousands and observe their acclamations. The Brazilians were touched by this "figure of a small orphan who would rule them one day." The entire ordeal, followed by the roar of saluting cannon, was so traumatic to the little emperor that it may account for his noted aversion to ceremonies as an adult.
  His elevation as emperor ushered in a period of crisis, the most troublesome in Brazil's history. As Pedro II could not exert his constitutional prerogatives as Emperor (Executive and Moderating Power) until he reached majority, a regency was created. The first regency consisted of a triumvirate, and one of its members was the same Brigadier General Francisco de Lima e Silva who had presented the infant Pedro to the Government more than five years previously. Disputes between political factions resulted in an unstable, almost anarchical, regency. The Liberals who had ousted Pedro I soon split into two factions: moderate liberals (constitutional monarchists who would later split into the Liberal Party and Conservative Party) and Republicans (a small minority, but radical and highly rebellious). There were also the Restorationists who had been previously known as Bonifacians.
  Several rebellions erupted during the regency. The first were the Rebellion of Santa Rita (1831), the Revolt of the Year of the Smoke (1833) and the Cabanada (or War of the Cabanos, 1832–34), which sought the return of Pedro I and which had the support of common people, former slaves, and slaves. The death of Pedro I on 24 September 1834 ended their hopes. The promulgation of the Additional Act in 1834, a constitutional amendment that gave higher administrative and political provincial decentralization, exacerbated conflicts between political parties, as whichever dominated the provinces would also gain control over the electoral and political system. Those parties which lost elections rebelled and tried to assume power by force. Rebellious factions, however, continued to uphold the Throne as a way of giving the appearance of legitimacy to their actions (that is, they were not in revolt against the monarchy per se). The Cabanagem (1835–40), the Sabinada (1837–38) and the Balaiada (1838–41) all followed this course, even though in some instances provinces attempted to secede and become independent republics (though ostensibly only so long as Pedro II was a minor). The exception was the Ragamuffin War, which began as yet another dispute between political factions in the province of Rio Grande do Sul but quickly evolved into a separatist rebellion financed by the Argentine dictator Don Manuel Rosas. But even in thi
caption: Pedro II at age 6 in a portrait sent to his grandfather, Francis II, 1832.
exif: {"Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image ExifOffset": "50", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "256", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4377", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "126", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "72bae4fb5b4eb85fa19995cb57c51611"}