Output details
30 - History
University of Essex
"Sustentar a Constituição e a Santa Religião Católica, amar à Pátria e o Imperador". Liberalismo popular e o idéario da Balaiada no Maranhão.
The insurrection known in historiography as “Balaiada” opposed military draft and arbitrary treatment by police chiefs. Thousands of peasants, cowboys and even slaves resisted imperial military forces in the Brazilian provinces of Maranhão and Piauí during the years 1838-41. The article examines the political creed of the rebels, as it emerges from their proclamations, correspondence among themselves and letters to the officers of legality. These sources demonstrate the significance of popular liberalism in northern Brazil. Rebel beliefs re-appropriated elite liberalism and combined it with elements of regional popular culture, in particular popular Catholicism, which accentuated its democratizing and egalitarian characteristics.