Deodoro da Fonseca
Deodoro da Fonseca was the marshal who rode out at the head of the Rio de Janeiro garrison on the morning of 15 November 1889, ended the Brazilian empire without a shot, and became the first president of the republic, an office he held for two years and left by resigning under threat of a naval revolt after trying to govern without the congress. He was a monarchist by sentiment, personally loyal to the emperor he deposed, ill on the morning of the coup, and had been persuaded by younger officers that the government was about to move against the army. He was born in Alagoas in 1827 into a family of soldiers, one of seven brothers who served, and made his name in the Paraguayan war, where he was wounded and promoted for the storming of the Paraguayan lines in 1869. By the 1880s he was the most senior officer in the army and the natural spokesman of the military question, the officers' quarrel with a civilian ministry that punished them for speaking in the press and, they thought, meant to reduce the army after abolition had removed its work of catching slaves. The republican officers around the positivist professor at the military school, needed a marshal with the troops' loyalty, and told Deodoro that the prime minister meant to arrest him and disband the units in the capital. He led the brigade to the war ministry, dismissed the cabinet, and only in the afternoon, at the urging of the civilians, agreed that the throne should go with it; the emperor was put on a ship for Europe two days later. The provisional government made him its head, the constituent assembly elected him president in February 1891 by a narrow margin over a civilian, and he quarrelled with the congress from the first week. On 3 November 1891 he dissolved it and declared a state of siege. The navy under Custodio de Melo threatened to bombard the city and the army would not follow him, and on 23 November he resigned in favour of his vice-president, Floriano Peixoto, who was the man the republicans had wanted. He died in Rio in August 1892, and asked to be buried in civilian clothes.
- Lived: 1827 CE – 1892 CE
- Nationality: Brazilian
- Roles: president, general, head of state
