Proclamation of the Brazilian Republic
On 15 November 1889, army officers under Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca marched on the imperial ministry in Rio de Janeiro and deposed the cabinet of Emperor Pedro II; the aged emperor abdicated and went into exile, and a republic was proclaimed. There was almost no popular participation: it was a classic military putsch carried out by a small group seizing power. The immediate catalyst was the alienation of the slave-owning planter class from the Crown after the uncompensated abolition of slavery in 1888 (the Lei Áurea), which removed the monarchy's traditional base of support. Positivist-influenced army officers, resentful of the monarchy's treatment of the military after the Paraguayan War, supplied the instrument. The coup inaugurated the oligarchic 'Old Republic', in which power passed to the coffee planters of São Paulo and Minas Gerais while the structural inequalities of land concentration and the marginalisation of the freed population were reproduced through republican institutions rather than dissolved.
- Year: 1889 CE
- Category: Political
