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The Mandarins of Imperial Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Eul-Soo Pang
Affiliation:
California State College, Hayward
Ron L. Seckinger
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Extract

The politicians of the Brazilian Empire (1822–89) have provided the inspiration for a tremendous production of historical writing. Scholars have experienced difficulty, however, in making valid generalizations concerning the career patterns of imperial politicians: recruitment, training, integration, and advancement within the ranks of the political elite. Good biographies furnish useful details about individual politicians and their careers, but do not identify the system adopted by the monarchy for the purpose of developing its own political elite. Generalizations have been based on individual cases, and no adequate treatment of collective career patterns exists.

Type
Elites
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1972

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References

1 ‘Political elite’ here refers to those persons who occupied national, provincial, and muni- cipal administrative and political posts and participated in the formation and execution of political decisions. Civil servants, or the ‘administrative elite’, are excluded from this category. See Bottomore, T. B., ‘The Administrative Elite’, in The New Sociology, Horowitz, Irving Louis, ed. (New York: Galaxy Books, 1965), 357–69Google Scholar; and Aron, Raymond, ‘Social Structure and the Ruling Class’, British Journal of Sociology, 1:1 (03 1950), 116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 The term ‘theory’ is used here to mean the relationship of various facts to one standard situation with a high degree of regularity. A certain situation can develop out of, say, x number of variables. When at another time the same x number of variables is held constant, the same result should happen. When the regularity of such a repetition in any situation with the same variables is attained, the theory can be said to have a high validity. In this study the theory of elite formation, while it does not have scientific rigor, does contain a number of variables such as social status (birth and marriage), education, kinship relations, decision and/or option to enter politics, choice in party affiliation, rotation in offices, geographical circulation, and so forth. When these variables are found in the career of a Brazilian politician of the imperial period, it is reasonable to assume that he was either a mandarin or a mandarin aspirant, depending on particular circumstances.

3 The term ‘mandarin’ is not arbitrarily chosen. By the mid-nineteenth century, ‘mandarin’ was often used to describe the imperial political elite. Aureliano Candido Tavares Bastos, an Alagoan liberal reform-monger, called the Conservative politicians ‘our mandarins’. Marchant, Anyda, Viscount Maud and the Empire of Brazil: A Biography of Irineu Evangelista de Sousa (1813–1889) (Berkeley, 1965), 109.Google Scholar

An adequate treatment of the ‘official or national ideology’ of Brazil lies outside the scope of this study. The term ‘ideology’ is used here in the sense of a set of ideas or beliefs that rationalize the past, present, and future of society. The ‘national or official ideology’ means the special set of ideas that were conventionally accepted, advocated, and practiced by the imperial political elite to rationalize its exercise of power, to explain the national past in the broadest sense of the word, to preserve the status quo of the Empire, and, finally, to guide the future of the nation so as to provide historical continuity. The Constitution of 1824 and other laws, plus various policies and ideas of the elite, constitute the core of the official ideology. The role of the mandarin was to enforce the elements of the official ideology in order to ensure political stability and the social continuity of the monarchy without causing fundamental changes to the system. For an excellent study of this subject, see Jaguaribe, Hélio, Economic and Political Development: A Theoretical Approach and a Brazilian Case Study (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 120–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For useful definitions of ideology, see Matossian, Mary, ‘Ideologies of Delayed Industrialization: Some Tensions and Ambiguities’, in Political Change in Underdeveloped Countries: Nationalism and Communism, Kausky, John H., ed. (New York, 1962), 252–3Google Scholar; Apter, David E., The Politics of Modernization (Chicago: Phoenix, 1967), 314–23Google Scholar; and Halpern, Ben, ‘Myth and Ideology in Modern Usage’, History and Theory, I: 2 (1961), 129–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 The literature on the mandarins of China is extensive. For representative treatments in English, see Ping-ti, Ho, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China. Aspects of Social Mobility, 1368–1911 (New York, 1962)Google Scholar; Marsh, Robert M., The Mandarins. The Circulation of Elites in China, 1600–1900 (Glencoe, I11., 1961)Google Scholar; Weber, Max, ‘The Chinese Literati’, in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. and trans. Gerth, Hans H. and Mills, C. Wright (New York: Galaxy Books, 1958), 416–44Google Scholar; and Hsu, Cho-yun, ‘The Changing Relationship between Local Society and the Central Political Power in Former Han: 206 B.C-8 A.D.’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 8:4 (07 1965), 358–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Bendix, Reinhard, Max Weber: An Intellectual Portrait (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1962), 109–25.Google Scholar Two recent works have applied the concept of mandarin to non-Oriental elites: Ringer, Fritz K., The Decline of the German Mandarins: The German Academic Community, 1890–1933 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969)Google Scholar; and Chomsky, Noam, American Power and the New Mandarins (New York, 1969).Google ScholarWilkinson, Rupert, Gentlemanly Power (New York, 1964)Google Scholar, compares the British public-school system with the education of elites in imperial China without referring to ‘British mandarins’. Studies of elite training in various cultures are available in Wilkinson, Rupert, ed., Governing Elites. Studies in Training and Selection (New York, 1969).Google Scholar

5 Freyre, Gilberto, New World in the Tropics. The Culture of Modern Brazil (New York: Vintage Books, 1963), 82, 89–90.Google Scholar

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8 Lanning, John Tate, Academic Culture in the Spanish Colonies (London, 1940), 33.Google Scholar

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13 Luís José de Carvalho e Melo (Visconde de Cachoeira), quoted in ibid., 12–13. See also Figueiredo, , op. cit., 510–11.Google Scholar

14 Mato Grosso offers an example of the increased opportunities made available to Brazilians by the establishment of the law faculties. Between 1750 and 1830, only two persons born in Mato Grosso graduated from the University of Coimbra. Fonseca, , op. cit., 390, 397.Google Scholar But between 1834 and 1899, the São Paulo law academy awarded degrees to nineteen students from Mato Grosso. Mesquita, José de, ‘Gente e cousas dantanho. Os primeiros bachareis mattogrossenses’, Revista do Institute) Histórico de Mato Grosso, Ano VII, No. 14 (1925), 45.Google Scholar

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16 Ferreira, , op. cit., 290, 305–6.Google Scholar The 1857 memorial cited above depicted imperial magistrates as the vanguard of civilization in the Brazilian wilderness, guarantors of personal and property rights. Figueiredo, , op. cit., 508–10.Google Scholar During the Tokugawa period (1600–1868), Japanese national unity was similarly fostered by the socialization of the elite in the principles of Confucianism. See Horie, Yasuzo, ‘Confucian Concept of State in Tokugawa Japan’, The Kyoto University Economic Review, 32:2 (10 1962), 2638.Google Scholar The University of Chuquisaca in the Spanish colonies provides another example of elite socialization, with different results. Students from different regions of Spanish South America gathered in Chuquisaca, where they were schooled in doctrines that justified resistance to royal authority under certain conditions. Many of these students later became leaders of the independence movement in their home regions. Common values bound the graduates of Chuquisaca together in opposition to Spain, but did not prevent the break-up of Spanish South America into several sovereign republics. Elite socialization in this case was not a unifying force in a territorial sense. See Arnade, Charles W., The Emergence of the Republic of Bolivia (Gainesville, 1957), 48.Google Scholar For comments on the ideological or cultural unity of the British and German elites, see Wilkinson, , op. cit., 132–3Google Scholar; and Ringer, , op. cit., 81–2.Google Scholar

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19 Based on a chart in Filho, Virgilio Corrda, Mato Grosso, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1939), following 54.Google Scholar

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22 The use of the provincial presidency by the national parties to win elections frequently occurred prior to 1868. In 1847, for example, various provincial presidents recently appointed by the Liberal cabinet were elected to the Chamber of Deputies by the provinces over which they presided, amid charges of electoral fraud. Mattos, L. J. C. D. Mello e, Paginas d'Historia Constitutional do Brasil, 1840–1848 (Rio de Janeiro, 1870), 353–4.Google Scholar

23 Double office-holding was possible only in provinces easily accessible from Rio de Janeiro. Travel between Rio de Janeiro and the interior provinces of Goiás, Mato Grosso, and Amazonas required so much time that one could not expect to exercise an office there and another in the capital simultaneously.

24 Blake, Augusto Victorino Alves Sacramento, Dicclonario Biographico Brazileiro, 7 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1883–1902), IV, 303–4Google Scholar; and Vampré, Spencer, Memórias para a História da Academia de SSão Paulo, 2 vols. (São Paulo, 1924), 1,116–21.Google Scholar

25 Almeida, Antônio da Rocha, Vultos da P´tria. Os brasileiros mats ilustres de seu tempo, 4 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1961–6), I, 143–7.Google Scholar

26 Wildberger, Arnold, Os Presidentes da Provincia da Bahia, Efetivos & Interims 1824–1889 (Salvador, 1949), 367–86, hereafter cited as Presidentes da Bahia.Google Scholar

27 Sisson, S. A., Galeria dos Brasileiros Ilustres (Os contemporaneos) (‘Biblioteca Histórica Brasileira’, 18, 2 vols.; Sao Paulo, 1948), II, 265–71.Google Scholar

28 Blake, Sacramento, op. dt., V, 116–17Google Scholar; and Tôrres, João Camillo de Tôliveira, O Conselho de Estado (‘Coleção Ensaios Brasileiros’, 2; Rio de Janeiro, 1965), 45.Google Scholar

29 Egas, Eugenio, Galeria dos Presidentes de Sao Paulo, 3 vols. (São Paulo, 1926), I, 615, hereafter cited as Presidentes de SSo PauloGoogle Scholar

30 Ibid.; and Presidentes da Bahia.

31 Data on the presidents of Mato Grosso were compiled from Sacramento Blake, Diccionario Biographico Brazileiro; Macedo, Joaquim Manoel de, Brazilian Biographical Annual, 3 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1876)Google Scholar; Mendonca, Rubens de, Dicionário Biográfico Mato-Grossense (São Paulo, 1953)Google Scholar and História de Mato Grosso (Através dos sens governadores) (n.p., 1967); Filho, Virgílio Corrêa, ‘Bahianos em Mato Grosso’, RIHGB, 200:3 (1948), 7881; Presidentes de São Paulo, II; Presidentes da Bahia; and scattered archival sources.Google Scholar

32 Information concerning birthplace, education, and the office of deputy was taken from Lyra, Augusto Tavares de, ‘Os ministros de estado da independência á república’, RIHGB, 193 (1012 1946), 3104.Google Scholar Which ministers served as provincial presidents and imperial senators was determined by comparing lists in Ministério da Justiça e Negócios Interiores, Nacional, Arquivo, Organizafdes e Programas Ministeriais. Regime parlamentar no Impirio, 2nd ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1962), 3257, 407–69.Google Scholar

33 Information regarding the prime ministers was compiled from the following sources: Sisson, Galeria dos Brasileiros Ilustres; Sacramento Blake, Diccionario Biographico Brazileiro; Almeida, Vultos da Pátria; Macedo, Brazilian Biographical Annual; Presidentes de São Paulo, II; and Presidentes da Bahia.

34 Morse, Richard M., ‘Some Themes of Brazilian History’, The South Atlantic Quarterly, 61:2 (Spring 1962), 159–82Google Scholar; Freyre, , New World in the Tropics, 93113Google Scholar; Martius, Karl F. P. von, ‘How the History of Brazil Should be Written’, in Perspectives on Brazilian History, Burns, E. Bradford, ed. (New York, 1967), 2141Google Scholar; Bastide, Roger, Brasil, Terra de Contrastes, trans. de Queiroz, Maria Isaura Pereira, 2nd ed. (São Paulo, 1962)Google Scholar; Oberacker, Carlos H. Jr., ‘A formação da nação brasileira’, Revista de História, Ano XVI, No. 29 (1957) 2136CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Henrique Oscar Wiederspahn, ‘O verdadeiro significado do “Estado do Brasil” e as bases dinásticas de nossa unidade nacional’, ibid., Ano XVII, No. 35 (1958), 131–45; Wagley, Charles, An Introduction to Brazil (New York, 1963), 124Google Scholar; Marchant, Alexander, ‘The Unity of Brazilian History’, in Brazil, Portrait of Half a Continent, Smith, T. Lynn and Marchant, Alexander, eds. (New York, 1951), 3751Google Scholar; de Mendonça, Marcos Carneiro, ‘O Marquês de Pombal e a unidade brasileira’, RIHGB, 219 (0406 1953), 5978Google Scholar; Miguel Couto Filho, ‘A formação da nacionalidade brasileira’, ibid., 237 (October-December, 1957) 132–43; Lima, Alceu Amoroso, ‘Psicologia do povo brasileiro’, Revista do Instituto Geográfico e Histórico da Bahia, No. 60 (1934), 219–39.Google Scholar

35 João Camillo de Oliveira Tôrres, ‘Originalidade e adequação das instituiçōes politicas do Império do Brasil’, in Sul, Universidade do Rio Grande do, de Filosofia, Faculdade, Uma Experiência Pioneira de Intercâmbio Cultural (Pôrto Alegre, 1963), 135–6.Google Scholar

36 [Francisco José de] Vianna, Oliveira, Instituições Politicas Brasileiras, 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1949), I, 372–3.Google Scholar See ibid., 361–86, for a general discussion of the absence of nationalism in imperial Brazil and the unifying influence of the social and political elites sustained by the emperor. Morse also hints at an elite variable, pointing to the nature of Brazilian leadership during the nineteenth century as one of the three major factors contributing to unity; but he is concerned with the presence of the monarchy, the restrained use of power by the emperors, and the absence of charismatic leaders such as Washington or Bolivar, not with a specially trained and nationally oriented elite. See Morse, , ‘Some Themes of Brazilian History’, 170–9.Google Scholar

37 Standard interpretations include Boehrer, George C. A., Da Monarquia á República. História do Partido Republicano do Brazil (1870–1889), trans. Xavier, Berenice (Rio de Janeiro, 1954)Google Scholar; Lyra, Heitor, História da Queda do Império (‘Brasiliana’, 320, 2 vols.; São Paulo, 1964)Google Scholar and Histório de Dom Pedro II, 1825–1891 (‘Brasiliana’, 133, 3 vols.; são Paulo, 1938–40); Magalhães, Raymundo, Deodoro. A espada contra o Império (‘Brasiliana, Grande Formato’, 12, 2 vols.; são Paulo, 1957)Google Scholar; Santos, José Maria dos, A Político Geral do Brasil (são Paulo, 1930)Google Scholar; Vianna, Francisco Jose de Oliveira, O Ocaso do Império, 3rd ed. (Rio de Janeiro, 1959)Google Scholar; Martin, Percy Alvin, ‘Causes of the Collapse of the Brazilian Empire’, HAHR, 4 (02 1921), 448Google Scholar; and José Bello, Maria, A History of Modern Brazil, 1889–1964, trans. Taylor, James L. (Stanford, 1966), 157.Google Scholar

38 Bastide, , Brasil, Terra de Contrastes, 126–9.Google Scholar For economic changes in the center-south, see Stein, Stanley J., Vassowas. A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850–1900 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957)Google Scholar; and Graham, Richard, Britain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil, 1850–1914 (Cambridge, England, 1968).CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the north-east, see Eisenberg, Peter, ‘Sugar Industry in Pernambuco, 1850–1889’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1969)Google Scholar; and Amaral, Braz do, Historia da Bahia do Imperio à Republica (Salvador, 1923).Google Scholar

39 Franco, Afonso Arinos de Melo, Historia e Teoria do Partido Politico no Direito Constitucional Brasileiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1948), 52. Melo Franco discusses the coffee interests that were represented in the Republican party movement in são Paulo.Google Scholar

40 Tdrres, João Camillo de Oliveira, Os Construtores do Impirio (‘Brasiliana’, 340; são Paulo, 1968), 16.Google Scholar See also Nabuco, Carolina, The Life of Joaquim Nabuco, trans. Hilton, Ronald (Stanford, 1950).Google Scholar

41 After 1861, annual exports exceeded imports (in value) through the end of the monarchy. Nery, F. J. de Santa-Anna, Le Brésil en 1889 (Paris, 1889), 441–65 and a chart on 465 bis.Google Scholar Concerning the export economy, see Furtado, Celso, The Economic Growth of Brazil, trans. de Aguiar, Ricardo W. and Drysdale, Eric Charles (Berkeley, 1963), 124–6. For the ineffectiveness of the banking codes in promoting commercial activitiesGoogle Scholar, see Caldgeras, João Pandiá, A Politico Monetária do Brasil (são Paulo, 1960), Part I, especially 91–6.Google Scholar

42 Fialho, Anfriso, Processo da Monarchia Brasileira (Rio de Janeiro, 1885), 1112Google Scholar; and Leal, Aureliano, Historia Constitutional do Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, 1915), 197. José Antônio Saraiva on one occasion advised Pedro II to ‘return the crown to the nation that gave it to him in 1831’.Google Scholar

43 Prazeres, Oto, ‘A economia brasileira e a administração das províncias’, Digesto Econômico, 4:39 (02 1948), 124.Google Scholar See also Iglesias, Francisco, Politico Econômica do Govêrno Provincial Mineiro (1835–1889) (Rio de Janeiro, 1958), 41–6.Google Scholar

44 Table 4 is based on de Abranches, Dunshee, Governos e Congressos da Republica dos Estados Unidos do Brazil, 2 vols. (são Paulo, 1918); and Presidentes de são Paulo, III. The eleven presidents included Júlio Prestes, whose assumption of the presidency was frustrated by the Revolution of 1930.Google Scholar

45 Johnson, John J., ed., Continuity and Change in Latin America (Stanford, 1964)Google Scholar; and Keith, Henry H. and Edwards, S. Fred, eds., Conflict and Continuity in Brazilian Society (Columbia, S.C., 1969).Google Scholar