In 1819, a 58-year-old mineralogist, with degrees in Law and Philosophy from the University of Coimbra, member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, and former Portuguese government employee, embarked on a journey from Lisbon to Brazil. Nearing retirement, naturalist Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio de Andrada e Silva (1763\u20131838) was an intellectual imbued with ideas of the Enlightenment. He fought against French troops led by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769\u20131821) and, despite his inherent responsibilities, he never became politically involved.<\/p>\n
However, this would all change the following year with the emergence of the Porto Revolution, which would bury the Old Regime and establish a constitutional monarchy in Portugal, based on the liberal ideas shared by the mineralogist. The revolution shaped the formation of governing boards within the provinces, and Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio, who had recently landed in Santos, where he was born and where his family lived, was elected to the S\u00e3o Paulo board, established in early 1821. One of his brothers, Ant\u00f4nio Carlos (1773\u20131845), would join the General and Extraordinary Cortes<\/em> of the Portuguese Nation, known as the Cortes of Lisbon, a Constituent Assembly of the New Regime that began meeting in January of 1821, at the Palace of Necessidades, in the Portuguese capital.<\/p>\n Two years later, the scholar who signed letters as \u201ca good Portuguese and a good subject\u201d of the Portuguese King would become one of the main architects of Brazil’s Independence. In the new country, he would be the constituent representative and Minister of State and Foreign Affairs. In August of 1822, he urged Dom Pedro I (1798\u20131834), prince regent and heir to the Portuguese throne, to separate from the Portuguese American territories, claiming that \u201cfrom Portugal, they [had] nothing to expect but slavery and horrors.\u201d During this period, he outlined a national project for the new country, which included gradually abolishing slavery, overhauling the land tenure system, and implementing a miscegenation program.<\/p>\n His ideas would not be put into practice. In 1823, the then Minister clashed with the elite Brazilian political leaders, which led to his dismissal in July. With the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, he lost his mandate as representative and was exiled by the same emperor whose power he had helped to consolidate. Bonif\u00e1cio’s exile would last until 1829, when he returned to Brazil and reconnected with the ruler. Upon abdicating and returning to Portugal in 1831, Dom Pedro chose him to tutor his son, future Emperor Dom Pedro II (1825\u20131891).<\/p>\n Over the last two decades, Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio de Andrada e Silva’s role in separating Portuguese America and his actions as a nature scholar have been interpreted in a new light, due to the discovery of manuscripts. According to historian Alex Gon\u00e7alves Varela, of Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ) and author of Juro-lhe pela honra de bom vassalo e bom portugu\u00eas<\/em> (I swear on my honor as a good subject and a good Portuguese; Annablume, 2006), it is now known that the mineralogist’s collection is scattered across several Brazilian archives. Varela reports finding materials in places such as the National Archive, the Brazilian Historic and Geographic Institute (IHGB), the National Museum and National Library in Rio de Janeiro, and the Paulista Museum (MP) in S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n Historian Miriam Dolhnikoff, of the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP) and author of the biography Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio: O patriarca vencido<\/em> (Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio: The defeated patriarch; Companhia das Letras, 2012), adds that the discovery of unpublished documents in the IHGB and the MP was fundamental to understanding why proposals to abolish slavery were included in a comprehensive national project. In 2006, Bonif\u00e1cio’s digitalized texts were uploaded to the Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio \u2013 Complete Works website, organized by writer Jorge Caldeira (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue n\u00ba 128<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n According to historian Ana Rosa Cloclet da Silva, of the Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas (PUC-Campinas) and author of Constru\u00e7\u00e3o da na\u00e7\u00e3o e escravid\u00e3o no pensamento de Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio<\/em> (Building a nation and slavery in the thought of Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio; Centro de Mem\u00f3ria\/UNICAMP, 1999), the mineralogist’s image has been disputed since the early years following Brazil’s Independence. On the one hand, he is called the \u201cPatriarch of Independence,\u201d while, on the other hand, he is seen as a despot who censored and persecuted political opponents while acting Minister. He is considered a man ahead of his time, having proposed the gradual abolition of slavery and reforms to the land tenure system. However, having rejected principles such as federalism and constituent assemblies, he is also seen as retrogressive.<\/p>\n \u201cPerspectives focused on personal characteristics and values overlook the actions of someone who lived through the rapid transformations of his time. It was a period of heated political tension, which started in the previous century and ramped up after the French Revolution [1798],\u201d says the historian. \u201cIt was in this context that he drafted his national project, as both heir to the enlightened Luso-Brazilian tradition and builder of the Brazilian state.\u201d<\/p>\n Dolhnikoff also adds that the choices and actions made by Dom Pedro I’s advisor and minister must be viewed through the lens of the conflicts at the time and the political reasoning they entailed. An example of this is Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio’s despotic approach. He put pressure on his adversaries by exercising the Press Law, in particular, which contained a wide range of restrictions on freedom of expression. This approach is the result of his intellectual background, claims the historian.<\/p>\n \u201cHe shared the idea commonly held during the Age of Enlightenment, that the enlightened, the scholars knew what was best for the country. He supported a liberal regime, which entailed some degree of grassroots participation, but at the same time, he believed that Brazilian society would be built from the top down,\u201d she says. \u201cHe believed it was necessary to have a strong Executive branch capable of implementing the reforms he had in mind that were essential for Brazil to become a modern, viable nation, with internal order.\u201d<\/p>\n Bonif\u00e1cio is a nearly forgotten figure in Portuguese historiography<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Although he spent most of his adult life in Portugal, working in the sciences and state administration, Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio is \u201ca nearly forgotten figure\u201d in Portuguese historiography, according to historian Isabel Corr\u00eaa da Silva, of the University of Lisbon. This is despite the importance of some of his roles, such as the Royal Intendant General of Mining and Metals, Director of Lisbon’s Mint, and the first metallurgy professor at the University of Coimbra. Corr\u00eaa da Silva, who wrote a biography of the mineralogist, says that his writings are only now beginning to be recognized as pioneering by science historians (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue n\u00ba 298<\/em><\/a>). \u201cIn fact, in Europe, he was already identified as a forerunner in his awareness of the link between nature and the exploitation of natural resources, which we would call \u2018ecology\u2019 today.\u201d<\/p>\n Given his education at the University of Coimbra and his administrative roles in the Portuguese government, Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio represents the junction between Brazil’s independence and enlightened reformism, the Portuguese version of Enlightenment. The education he received in Coimbra was reformed during the period in which Sebasti\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 de Carvalho e Melo, the Marquis of Pombal (1699\u20131782), led the country: in place of the Jesuit-led scholastic tradition, the institution incorporated the scientific mentality spreading across Europe during the Age of Enlightenment.<\/p>\n \u201cBonif\u00e1cio studied at a reformed university and is the product of this reformation,\u201d states Corr\u00eaa da Silva. \u201cHe inherited the concepts of establishing a centralized state and strengthening royal power from Pombal, as he believed that only the State had the structure and capacity to implement the changes required to modernize society. This was the spirit guiding him as he worked in the Portuguese government and fought to uphold the kingdom, and later when establishing the political and legal framework of the new Brazil,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n Between 1790 and 1800, young Bonif\u00e1cio embarked on a \u201cprofessionalization\u201d trip across Europe, funded by the Portuguese government. He visited France, Germany, and Scandinavia. He took specialization courses and identified four minerals, of which the most well-known is petalite, fundamental to the 1817 discovery of a new chemical element, lithium (see<\/em> Pesquisa FAPESP issue n\u00ba 277<\/em><\/a>). In Germany, he studied with Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749\u20131817), who, according to Varela, became quite notable in mineralogy.<\/p>\n During this time, he expressed his horror at the instability that followed the French Revolution, according to economist Ivan Colangelo Salom\u00e3o, of the Federal University of Paran\u00e1 (UFPR). His negative impression of this period in time, which he referred to as an \u201cunprecedented revolution,\u201d helped form his own political thinking, adds the economist. \u201cFrance decisively shaped one of his most conservative facets. He was intolerant of disorder and lost faith in the functionality of deliberative assemblies. This influenced his stance during debates about Brazil’s first Constitution,\u201d he states.<\/p>\n Bonif\u00e1cio’s career as a mineralogist played out under the banner of the Portuguese reformist project, which aimed to modernize the country. The positions held by the scholar in Portugal also entailed promoting the country’s development. \u201cBonif\u00e1cio was a pragmatic man. His scientific concerns were inseparable from his concerns regarding the monarchy’s economic development and prosperity. So, after returning to Portugal [from his trip throughout Europe], he experienced a so-called \u2018anticlimax,\u2019 a decade of disappointments, where he tried to apply his knowledge in the field and in modernizing the country,\u201d says Corr\u00eaa da Silva. Upon returning to Brazil, in 1819, he was disappointed with the lack of development in Portugal, adds the historian.<\/p>\n A fundamental element of his involvement as a public figure was his relationship with Dom Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho (1755\u20131812), Count of Linhares. Dom Rodrigo, who would become Minister of Foreign Affairs and War under Dom Jo\u00e3o VI (1767\u20131826) and who would travel to Rio de Janeiro with the Portuguese Corte in 1808, conceived a transatlantic Portuguese Empire, where Brazil, the largest and richest land in its territory, would be an integral part, rather than a mere colony. \u201cBonif\u00e1cio became Dom Rodrigo’s right-hand man and was appointed to various positions. And, thus, the naturalist facet was linked to the public figure,\u201d says Varela.<\/p>\n Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio’s link to Enlightenment also led to his economic ideas, says Salom\u00e3o. As a member of the Academy of Sciences, he helped write Mem\u00f3rias Econ\u00f4micas da Academia <\/em>(Economic Memories of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Lisbon<\/em>), a collection of essays on the Portuguese Empire’s economy, published in five volumes from 1789 to 1815. Texts such as Mem\u00f3ria sobre a pesca das baleias<\/em> (Memories of whaling), from 1790, were written with the intent of making the practice more profitable. \u201cEnlightenment is seen in the recurrent appeal to reason, proposing that nature be observed in order to extract practical records that contribute to social and environmental well-being,\u201d according to the UFPR researcher. \u201cAdditionally, English liberalism extended its influence through the defense of economic freedom, to the detriment of government control and monopolies.\u201d<\/p>\n Salom\u00e3o highlights that Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio’s economic ideas took a turn when he left mineralogy and became a civil servant in Portugal, and then a politician in Brazil. Once he found himself in charge of outlining the founding elements of a nation, \u201cBonif\u00e1cio adopted a clearly nationalist stance, not only in his discourse, but in concrete measures,\u201d notes the economist.<\/p>\n In 1823, he opposed borrowing from the English, advising the Minister of Finance, his brother Martim Francisco (1775\u20131844), to issue fiat money and bonds to be paid using revenue from Customs in Rio de Janeiro. \u201cBonif\u00e1cio remembered Lisbon’s commercial and financial subordination to London, mainly after signing the Methuen Treaty [1703], which favored the English textile industry, to the detriment of Portuguese manufacturing,\u201d notes Salom\u00e3o, adding that the Minister defended establishing manufacturers in Brazil as well.<\/p>\n According to the economist, many things could explain this shifting stance. \u201cIt is likely that his liberalism was inadequate when faced with the conservative reality, in the sense that the slaveholder mentality had been ingrained in Brazil for three centuries,\u201d he suggests. \u201cHe sought to adapt his liberal beliefs to local circumstances. His defense of free trade was focused on the domestic market. As the country was continental, but the regions were dispersed, it was trade that united the nation. This was a State interest, which reveals an organic political and economic design.\u201d<\/p>\n Plans such as ending the slave trade and, over time, slavery itself also had an economic purpose, since Bonif\u00e1cio considered it low yield. The same can be said for reforming the sesmarias<\/em>, also known as land tenures. Bonif\u00e1cio advocated that the government buy idle land and distribute it among Indigenous and Black people, who would produce more than the large estates cultivated by slave labor.<\/p>\n Until a few months prior to the political rift between Portugal and the former colony, Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio fully subscribed to the Count of Linhares\u2019 project. According to Cloclet, both the \u201cBrazilians\u201d and the rein\u00f3is<\/em> (Portuguese-born residents of Brazil) saw themselves as subjects of the same monarch and members of the \u201cgreat Lusitanian family.” However, when the Portuguese Corte moved to Rio de Janeiro, the roles granted to parties under the Empire were overturned.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Luso-Brazilian elite did not contemplate independence. They saw themselves as subjects of the Portuguese Empire and as Europeans in a territory occupied by a barbarian population,\u201d says Dolhnikoff. \u201cUnique to Brazil were the arrival of the Portuguese Corte in 1808 and the elevation of Portugal and the Algarve as a United Kingdom. All government institutions were headquartered in Brazil and that was what they wanted to maintain, with a representative of the monarchy in Rio de Janeiro, who, at the time, was Dom Pedro I.\u201d<\/p>\n However, news from Lisbon in 1822 indicated that the Portuguese constituents wanted a concentration of State institutions on the European side. \u201cFrom that moment on, the Brazilian elite, including Bonif\u00e1cio, began discussing a project to recolonize Brazil and to represent Portugal as an explorer,\u201d says Dolhnikoff.<\/p>\n According to Cloclet, the different ways in which the rein\u00f3is and the local subjects experienced that moment led to irreconcilable expectations for the future. In Brazilian cities, the feeling of divisiveness, where the Portuguese came to be seen as foreigners, reflected the anti-Lusitanism that took off in the First Reign, much more than it revealed a national identity. \u201cCreating this national identity was one of the challenges faced by people like Bonif\u00e1cio. He began thinking about what race should emerge and developed ideas about miscegenation, which were expressed in the mineralogist’s metaphor as \u2018the very difficult amalgamation of so many heterogeneous metals,\u2019\u201d summarizes the PUC-Campinas researcher.<\/p>\n After the Andrada brothers\u2019 dismissal, and Bonif\u00e1cio’s subsequent exile, the social and economic content of Bonif\u00e1cio’s project was abandoned. The abolition of slavery and reformation of land distribution were unlikely at that time, in a country of elites comprising landowners and traders who operated the slave trade in the South Atlantic. The initiatives for miscegenation and integration of the Indigenous population were not even discussed before dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, in 1823.<\/p>\n Scientific articles<\/strong>
\nCHAGAS, C. S. and CORR\u00caA, T. H. B. As contribui\u00e7\u00f5es cient\u00edficas de Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio e a descoberta do l\u00edtio: Um caminhar pela hist\u00f3ria da ci\u00eancia<\/a>. Revista de Educa\u00e7\u00e3o, Ci\u00eancias e Matem\u00e1tica<\/strong>. vol. 7, no. 1. 2017.
\nSALOM\u00c3O, I. C. Liberalismo, industrializa\u00e7\u00e3o e desenvolvimento: As ideias econ\u00f4micas de Jos\u00e9 Bonif\u00e1cio de Andrada e Silva<\/a>. Almanack<\/strong>. no. 26. 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mineralogist and professor in Coimbra, \u201cthe patriarch\u201d proposed a political and economic project for the new country","protected":false},"author":613,"featured_media":463627,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[241],"coauthors":[1619],"class_list":["post-463626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanities","tag-history"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/613"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463626"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463632,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463626\/revisions\/463632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463626"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=463626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}