Contribution: Tempo de Dificuldades (part 2) by EmperorBr

With permission from@ EdMarCarSe:

Tempo de Dificuldades, or in english, Time of Troubles - Part 2

"The first casualty of war is innocence".

SL Buckley

The abolition of slavery would be one of the greatest events in brazilian history, where the descendants of the slaves brought from Africa would be by law be free and with it, finaly put an end to a process to was marching since 1850 with the Law of Free Birth, which freed all children born to slave parents and the Law of Sexagenarians in 1885, that freed slaves when they reached the age of 60. To compare with the United States, there wasn't in Brazil a deep and entrenched racial ideal, where the slave was utterly incapable and needed a white governance to survive, that it was sub-human, etc.

In Brazil, there already existed since its proclamation of independence a disgust for the institution, with its defenders objecting it for economic and socio-political reasons, for the landowners, the ones who initiated the path of independence and were the main supporters for the monarchical institution, were unwilling to stop a tried and for most part profitable way of life. Even with the British halting the slave trade with its fleets, illegaly Brazil was one of the biggest markets for the African kingdoms, creating ties between both continents as the culture of the enslaved grew roots in the Americas, estabilishing ties such as vassalage and hierarquies between the slaves and the monarch who, as a manner of achieving recognition, utilized rituals from Europe to estabilish itself amidst a sea of 'republics'.

The manner in which to combat and defeat the institution of slavery would be gradual and conciliatory, to those inside such as the landowners and abolicionists and those outside such as the British with laws such as those previously mentioned. All this lecture is very important to understand the context in which the young society of Brazil was full of contradictions, holding itself tighty but with a brittle base that as the years passed seemed shaky and uncontrollable.

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Now that slavery was abolished, it seemed that the pieces that previously held Brazil together were no longer the case, with discontent increasing in those opposed to the monarch in the fringes, as his popularity with the people even with all the mockery was never in question. The nation was booming with foreign trade, the development of Nova Alexandria with Russia gave the nation opportunity, be it to increase foreign trade, better opportunities for those migrating from the 'Sertão', expand its control over the jungle, create roads, bridges in places where almost no governmental control was in place, strengthening ties to the navy and the northern and northeastern states that would remain loyal during the Civil War.

What truly began the countdown to chaos and uncertainty would be a shot of a pistol by an unknown assassin that in the morning of July 15, hit in the chest Dom Pedro II during one of his walks in Petrópolis, earning countrywide horror as even those opposed to him proclaimed it to be a horrible act to one that did so much to Brazil. His heir, former princess Isabel now proclaimed Empress Isabel I, shocked, horrified and enraged, seemed different by those that knew her, becoming more assertive, stubborn and impervious to mockery, a quality that would be needed in the days ahead but that down the line would be a detriment and a flaw. So begins her reign, one to change Brazil forever as the players prepared and waited such as the anti-monarchical officials, religious authorities and oligarchs. So ends the reign of the Magnanimous, filled with glory, bravery and uncertainty.