page_title: Early life of Pedro II of Brazil
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Early life of Pedro II of Brazil / Heir to the throne / Early years
caption_attribution_description: Pedro de Alcântara, later Pedro II of Brazil
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: Pedro I invited Dona Mariana de Verna Magalhães Coutinho (later Countess of Belmonte in 1844) to take the position of aia (supervisor) to his son. Mariana de Verna was a Portuguese widow who was considered a cultured, honorable and kindly woman. Pedro II called her "Dadama" as he did not pronounce the word "dame" correctly as a child. However, he would continue calling her in this way into adulthood, though out of affection and treating her as his surrogate mother. As was the custom of the time, he was not nursed by his mother. Instead, a Swiss immigrant from the Morro do Queimado colony ("Burnt Hill", now Nova Friburgo) by the name of Marie Catherine Equey was chosen as his wet nurse.
  Empress Leopoldina died on 11 December 1826, days after the stillbirth of a male child, when Pedro was one year old. Pedro would have no memory of his mother; only what he was later told about her. Of his father, "he retained no strong images of him" in adulthood, that is, he recalled "no clear visual image" of Pedro I.
  His father was married two and a half years later to Amélie of Leuchtenberg. Prince Pedro spent little time with his stepmother, who would ultimately leave the country two years later. Even so, they had an affectionate relationship and kept in contact with each other until her death in 1873. So strong was Amélie's influence over the young prince that he always considered her to be his mother, and as an adult "the ideal female, whom he ever sought, was dark-haired, vivacious, and intelligent, and noticeably older in years than he." Pedro I abdicated the Imperial crown on 7 April 1831, after a long conflict with the federalist liberals. He and Amélie immediately departed for Portugal to reclaim the crown of his daughter, which had been usurped by his brother Miguel I. Left behind, Prince Imperial Pedro thus became "Dom Pedro II, Constitutional Emperor and Perpetual Defender of Brazil".
caption: Pedro around the age of 4, c.1830.
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