Between «reciprocal interests» and «recolonization»

press debate in Rio de Janeiro, 1821/1822

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the ways in which press organs, produced at the Court of Rio de Janeiro, between 1821 and 1822, constructed narratives to describe and assign meanings to the movement of separation between Brazil and Portugal. Part of these publications used expressions such as «Colony state» and «recolonization» to justify and encourage the break with the European Kingdom. Other periodicals, however, even indicating incompatibilities between proposals from the Courts and provinces of Brazil, rejected that premise and the possibility of a separation, until the end of 1822. Almost all Brazilian historiographic production on the theme of Independence incorporated «recolonization» as a fact and not as a political version formulated by supporters of the separation since 1821, which contributed to an interpretation, in tune with the leaders of the Court of Rio de Janeiro, ended up being transformed into historical «evidence», repeated to exhaustion until today. What interests and conceptions would underlie this understanding?