This chapter offers an overview of the Luso-Brazilian World in the Age of Revolutions. It surveys key episodes culminating in the independence of Brazil, including the transfer of the Portuguese Court from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, the Napoleonic invasion of Portugal and its long-term political implications, the creation of a Reino Unido (United Kingdom) from 1815 and the resistance that this reconfiguration of the Portuguese empire provoked. The chapter then traces the impact of the 1820 liberal revolution in Portugal, which sought not only to establish a constitutional monarchy, but to return the seat of the monarchy to the Peninsula. This effort to return to the status quo ex ante was rejected in Brazil and precipitated independence. Far from a denouement, however, Portugal and Brazil continued to influence each other’s political evolution in the aftermath of formal empire.

The various Atlantic and European entanglements of the age of Latin American independence make it difficult to establish solely “Iberian” perspectives of the events culminating in the independences. Nevertheless, this essay proposes four distinct periods, mostly based on developments in Iberian politics, including the Peninsular War and its aftermath, when elites in Spain and Portugal advanced distinct views and solutions to the crises unfolding in the Americas. Certainly, the situation was not the same in Spain and Portugal. Still, the many cross-pollinations in Spanish and Portuguese politics in the first quarter of the nineteenth century permit the use of shared chronological benchmarks. Indeed, the years of the French occupation of the Iberian Peninsula between 1808 and 1814, and the distinct challenges that the events in this six-year period created, loomed large in subsequent debates about imperial preservation, sovereignty, rights, and relations within the Iberian Empires. Large-scale, multisited, unrest in Spanish America since 1810, prompted the proposal of political and military solutions to guarantee the integrity of the empire and of what some viewed as a trans-Atlantic “Spanish nation.” In Portugal, the debates revolved around the lasting consequences of the royal family’s relocation to Rio de Janeiro in 1808, and anxieties about the status of Portugal itself within the reconfigured empire.

Gentlemen:

It has been 12 years since that day when, speaking to our Patriotic Society concerning the means to encourage the prosperity of Asturias, I had the honor of suggesting to its zealous members that no measure would be as effective and beneficial, nor as worthy of their consideration, as establishing an institute for the study of the useful sciences in this land. Some of those who are here now were witnesses to the ardor with which I sought to persuade my audience of this valuable truth, even when we believed we were far from the happy circumstances in which we find ourselves today, when this study is even more necessary than ever. Who would have told us then that scarcely any time would pass before we would see that dream realized in the midst of the bright future promised by a good king's protection under the influence of a committed minister? And who would have told me that I would return from afar to inaugurate this valuable establishment in my fatherland (patria), so close to the walls that witnessed my birth, among my childhood companions and surrounded by so many distinguished personages? For this, my beloved compatriots, is the mission with which I have been entrusted; this is the object of the present solemn occasion. Ready yourselves to receive the good that I bring you; prepare to celebrate it, not with vain demonstrations of joy, but with pure sentiments of love and gratitude toward the monarch who provides it. After employing all of my zeal in its procurement, what is left for me to do but to sketch for you the benefits that it shall bring and the obligations that it entails? This is what I will endeavor to do now, if you will give me your attention.

Yes, gentlemen, today we acquire a great debt, because the value of that with which our good king has made us wealthy is immense. Is there anything nobler or more precious than knowledge on this earth? And this is what Charles IV intends to establish here, among you. You will not have to abandon your homeland; you will not have to wander in pilgrimage, searching for it, like Pythagoras, in faraway lands.

Gentlemen:

Today, standing here before you to acknowledge the distinction with which this illustrious Academy has honored me, is the most joyous and laudable of my life. The embarrassment of seeing myself adorned with a title that I did not deserve would diminish my pleasure of receiving it, if I did not recognize that when you granted me the right to sit among you, you are not honoring what I am today, but what I wish to become, rewarding my desire with a sort of anticipatory distinction. And to stimulate even further my love of wisdom, you award me the prize beforehand, even though it should only be given after wisdom has been attained.

Incorporated, then, into this assembly, the wellspring of erudition and learned criticism [crítica] in Spain; sitting among the wise, whose knowledge of history is enhanced by that of the useful sciences; part of this circle of select men who, fleeing idleness and dissipation, come to worship truth in its sanctuary while ignorance and preoccupations [preocupaciones] overpower the masses, I am beginning to regard myself as a different man, and, enthused by a powerful spirit of emulation, I wish to follow in your footsteps and imitate your zeal, because I am convinced that only by accompanying you in your vigils and labors might I justly aspire to share in your reputation and true glory.

Nothing satisfies me more than the hope of acquiring from your company and conversation a small portion of your learning; of enriching with it the limited patrimony of my own ideas; and thus making myself worthy both of standing beside you, and of my own profession. Because, gentlemen, if the science of history is, as I believe, entirely necessary for jurisprudence, where else but among you could I attain the knowledge that I confess to lack, and without which I cannot duly discharge my duties as magistrate?

REPORT OF THE ECONOMIC SOCIETY OF THIS COURT [MADRID] TO THE ROYAL AND SUPREME COUNCIL OF CASTILE ON THE AGRARIAN LAW DOSSIER, SUBMITTED BY ITS MEMBER, MR. DON GASPAR MELCHOR DE JOVELLANOS, ON BEHALF OF THE JUNTA COMMISSIONED TO CONSIDER THE SAID DOSSIER, AND IN ACCORDANCE WITH ITS OPINIONS

“Æque pauperibus prodest, locuplentibus æque: Æque neglectum pueris, sensibus nocebit.”

Horatius epist. 1. Lib. 1.

INDEX OF THE ARTICLES CONTAINED IN THE REPORT ON THE AGRARIAN LAW

[INITIAL REMARKS]: 1– 6

THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF OUR AGRICULTURE: 7– 15

THE INFLUENCE OF LEGISLATION ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE: 16– 18

LAWS SHOULD LIMIT THEMSELVES TO AGRICULTURE's PROTECTION: 19– 23

THIS PROTECTION SHOULD BE LIMITED TO THE REMOVAL OF THE OBSTACLES THAT THWART THE [SELF-] INTEREST OF AGRICULTURE's AGENTS: 24– 29

[ON THE] CONVERGENCE OF THE OBJECT OF THE LAWS WITH THAT OF SELF- INTEREST: 29– 31

[ON THE NEED TO] INVESTIGATE THE OBSTACLES THAT OPPOSE SAID INTEREST: 32– 33

FIRST KIND

POLITICAL OBSTACLES, OR THOSE DERIVED FROM LEGISLATION: 34– 319

1st. Baldíos: 38– 54

2nd. Municipal lands [Tierras concejiles]: 55– 60

3rd. The openness of lands [La apertura de las heredades]: 61– 106

The usefulness of enclosures: 79– 106

4th. Partial protection of cultivation: 107– 124

5th. The Mesta: 125– 146

6th. Mortmain tenures [La amortización]: 147– 222

1st. Ecclesiastical: 170– 172

Regular clergy: 173– 175

Secular clergy: 176– 184

2nd. Civil: mayorazgos [primogeniture entail]: 185– 222

7th. Circulation of agricultural produce: 223– 301

On fixed prices [De las posturas]: 228– 242

On general domestic trade: 243– 268

On foreign trade: 269– 301

1st. Of agricultural products: 269– 273

2nd. Of raw materials: 274– 277

3rd. Of grain: 278– 301

8th. On taxes examined in relation to agriculture: 302– 319

SECOND KIND

MORAL OBSTACLES, OR THOSE DERIVED FROM OPINION: 320– 362

1st On the part of the government: 323– 331

2nd On the role of agriculture's agents: 332– 346

Advertencia

Since this text was written as a eulogy that demonstrated how much had been done to promote useful instruction in Spain during the reign of the good king Charles III, who now rests in peace, other events related to his reign were described briefly, and the reflections that such a vast subject required were also abridged. The very nature of the piece demanded concision, but some people have suggested that several of the topics that the text mentions hurriedly deserve elaboration in a series of notes.

Though the author generally concurs with this view, he believes that he cannot, and should not, follow it, for two especially powerful reasons. First, that those readers who chose this text among the many written to honor Charles III, some of which contain a greater number of details and lengthier descriptions, do not seem to need the commentary to understand it; and, second, that having been asked by the Royal Society of Madrid to present this eulogy, and thus been so generously honored, the author cannot regard the text as his own, nor add anything that did not receive the Society's accolades. The eulogy appears here, therefore, exactly as it was read to that illustrious body on Saturday, 8 November of last year; with the author conceding, in deference to the Society, to both publish a text that was incapable of fulfilling the great object that was his aim, and to do so without altering it, and thus renouncing the improvement that a meditated and thorough revision might have brought about.

But if the public, which tends to dispense with circumstantial merits when judging works directed to its utility, were to embrace this one, the author reserves the right to revise it and publish it again. Then he would strive to include notes that clarify those points related to the literary history of political economy, which are, to his mind, in greater need of elaboration, and more worthy of it, too.

Jovellanos, the Bourbon Reforms and the Spanish Enlightenment

Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744– 1811) was a leading figure of the late eighteenthcentury Spanish Enlightenment. His life and career coincided with what is known to historians as the period of the Bourbon Reforms, called “Bourbon” for the dynasty that ruled Spain and its Atlantic empire from the first decades of the eighteenth century. The reforms the Crown undertook, which touched all aspects of Spanish political, economic and social life, reached their apogee in the final third of the century. Many historians, though not all, have understood these reforms to have been influenced by the new currents of thought often associated with the Enlightenment, and thus classify the quickening of the pace of government action to reshape society as “enlightened reform.” Bourbon reformers rejected the notion of Spain as an eclipsed power. They endeavored to assert the Crown's rejuvenated sovereignty over its far- flung empire against the relentless encroachments by competitor imperial states, like Britain. Bourbon reformers attempted to turn away from the stable, resilient “composite” monarchy structure and, in its place, erect a unified nation- state, subservient to the monarchy and capable of inculcating a new patriotic spirit. They took practical steps— though sometimes tentatively, erratically and with few tangible results— in both the Old World and the New to further this aim.

The strenuous reform effort expended in Spain and Spanish America was formidable, even if it was seldom matched by the permanent results attained. Contemporaries witnessed fresh incursions into Amerindian- controlled lands, the spasmodic settlement of rustic peripheries from Patagonia to modern British Columbia and the military repossession of Florida, Louisiana and the Mosquito Coast. There were Crown- led attempts to overhaul the navy, improve and expand the army and colonial militias, revamp coastal fortifications and ports, modify university education, enact a less- regulated trade regime, boost mineral yields, encourage export- led agricultural production and wrest control of church property and patronage.

Gentlemen:

The first time that I had the honor of addressing you from this podium, on that memorable and glorious day on which, with the purest joy and hopes of promise, we opened the doors of this new Institute and welcomed you to it, you learned that my first care was to lift your eyes to the importance and usefulness of the sciences that you had come to study. And if there was any merit in my words, if the ardent zeal of procuring your good fortune lent them any strength, you will not have forgotten the tender solicitude with which I exhorted you to embrace the truth that I presented. And? After three years, when you have come to the glorious end of this cycle [of your studies], and as we prepare to present to the public the first fruits of your diligence and our conduct, must we continue to persuade and convince you of such a well- known truth?

Perhaps this is what public opinion demands from us, and we would acquiesce to it were we not certain of swaying it more strongly with deeds instead of words. Yes, gentlemen, despite the progress achieved through our constancy and yours, and in the midst of the justice with which it is honored by those good souls that, mindful of the importance of public education, yearn for its improvement, I know that malignant spirits hover around you, censuring your efforts. Enemies of useful instruction and of the public good, which depends upon it, they discredit the objects of your teaching and, under the false pretenses of friendship and compassion, they question its advantages and the benefits you will gain from it. It is the struggle of light against darkness that I foresaw and spoke to you about on that solemn day; and it is faced by all public establishments that wage war on ignorance and aspire to promote true instruction.