The first chronicle of the events of the entire period 1808–31, though concentrating on the years 1821–31, is John Armitage, History of Brazil from the Arrival of the Braganza Family in 1808 to the Abdication of Dom Pedro the First in 1831, published in London in 1836 when the author, who had gone to Rio de Janeiro as a young merchant in 1828, was still only 29. Intended as a sequel to Robert Southey’s monumental History of Brazil (1810–19), the first general history of Brazil during the colonial period, Armitage’s History has been used and justly praised by every historian of the independence period in Brazil. Of the many contemporary accounts perhaps the best known and most valuable is Maria Graham, Journal of a Voyage to Brazil and Residence There during Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 (London, 1824). The author was resident in Brazil from September 1821 to March 1822 and again from March to October 1823, that is to say, immediately before and immediately after independence. Indispensable for the period of Dom João’s residence in Brazil (1808–21) is Luiz Gonçalves dos Santos, Memórias para servir à história do reino do Brasil [1825], 2 vols. (Rio de Janeiro, 1943).

The traditional historiography of Brazilian independence is dominated by four great works, all essentially detailed accounts of political events: Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, História da independência do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, 1917); Manoel de Oliveira Lima, Dom joão VI no Brasil (1808–21) (1909; 2nd ed., 3 vols., Rio de Janeiro, 1945), the classic study of the Portuguese court in Rio, and O Movimento da Independência (São Paulo, 1922); and Tobias do Rego Monteiro, História do império: A elaboraçao da independéncia (Rio de Janeiro, 1927).