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born Oct. 12, 1798, Lisbon, Port.—died Sept. 24, 1834, Lisbon), founder of the Brazilian empire and first emperor of Brazil, from Dec. 1, 1822, to April 7, 1831, also reckoned as King Pedro (Peter) IV of Portugal. Generally known as Dom Pedro, he was the son of King John VI of Portugal. When Napoleon conquered Portugal in 1807, Pedro accompanied the royal family in its flight to Brazil. He remained there as regent when King John returned to Portugal in 1821.

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born Oct. 12, 1798, Lisbon, Port.—died Sept. 24, 1834, Lisbon), founder of the Brazilian empire and first emperor of Brazil, from Dec. 1, 1822, to April 7, 1831, also reckoned as King Pedro (Peter) IV of Portugal. Generally known as Dom Pedro, he was the son of King John VI of Portugal. When Napoleon conquered Portugal in 1807, Pedro accompanied the royal family in its flight to Brazil. He remained there as regent when King John returned to Portugal in 1821.

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Pedro I, (born Oct. 12, 1798, Lisbon, Port.-died Sept. 24, 1834, Lisbon), founder of the Brazilian empire and first emperor of Brazil, from Dec. 1, 1822, to April 7, 1831, also reckoned as King Pedro (Peter) IV of Portugal.

Generally known as Dom Pedro, he was the son of King John VI of Portugal. When Napoleon conquered Portugal in 1807, Pedro accompanied the royal family in its flight to Brazil. He remained there as regent when King John returned to Portugal in 1821.

Pedro surrounded himself with ministers who counseled independence. When the Portuguese Cortês (Parliament), preferring colonial status for Brazil, demanded that Pedro return to Lisbon to "complete his political education," he issued a declaration of Brazilian independence on Sept. 7, 1822. Within three months he was crowned emperor.

Pedro's initial popularity waned, and in 1823, when the Brazilian Assembly was preparing a liberal constitution, he dissolved that body and exiled the radical leader José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva. On March 25, 1824, however, Pedro accepted a somewhat less liberal constitution drafted by the Council of State at his behest.

Although adoption of that charter may have saved Pedro from deposition, it did not reestablish his popularity. His autocratic manner, his lack of enthusiasm for parliamentary government, and his continuing deep interest in Portuguese affairs antagonized his subjects, as did the failure of his military forces in a war with Argentina over what is now Uruguay. Strong opposition in the Brazilian Parliament and a series of local uprisings induced him to abdicate in 1831 in favour of his son Dom Pedro II, who was then five years old. Pedro I then returned to Portugal.

On the death of King John VI (March 10, 1826), Pedro I had become titular king of Portugal as Pedro IV. Two months later, still in Brazil, he issued a parliamentary charter for Portugal and conditionally abdicated the Portuguese throne in favour of his daughter Maria da Glória, the future Queen Maria II. He died of natural causes in Portugal while securing his daughter's claim against that of his brother, the regent Miguel.

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Pedro I | Reign of Brazil, Independence, Abolitionist

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Pedro I, founder of the Brazilian empire and first emperor of Brazil, from Dec. 1, 1822, to April 7, 1831, also reckoned as King Pedro (Peter) IV of Portugal. Generally known as Dom Pedro, he was the son of King John VI of Portugal.

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Europe (1848-1871): Timeline | SparkNotes

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A timeline listing the important events during Europe (1848-1871)

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Timeline of Brazilian history - Wikipedia

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This is a timeline of Brazilian history, comprising important legal and territorial changes and political events in Brazil and its predecessor states. To read about the background to these events, see History of Brazil.

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German Empire, also called Second Reich, historical empire founded on January 18, 1871, in the wake of three short, successful wars by the North German state of Prussia. Within a seven-year span, Denmark, the Habsburg monarchy, and France had been vanquished. Prussia, occupying more than three-fifths of the area of Germany and having approximately three-fifths of the population, remained the dominant force in the empire until its demise at the end of World War I.

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German Empire, also called Second Reich, historical empire founded on January 18, 1871, in the wake of three short, successful wars by the North German state of Prussia. Within a seven-year span, Denmark, the Habsburg monarchy, and France had been vanquished. Prussia, occupying more than three-fifths of the area of Germany and having approximately three-fifths of the population, remained the dominant force in the empire until its demise at the end of World War I.

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German Empire | Facts, History, Flag, & Map

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The German Empire was founded in 1871, after three successful wars by the North German state of Prussia. Prussia remained the dominant force in the nation until the empire's demise at the end of another war in 1918. Learn more about the history and significance of the German Empire in this article.

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Toussaint Louverture, Louverture also spelled L’Ouverture, original name (until c. 1793) François Dominique Toussaint, (born c. 1743, Breda, near Cap-Francais, Saint-Domingue [Haiti]—died April 7, 1803, Fort-de-Joux, France), leader of the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution (1787–99). He emancipated the slaves and negotiated for the French colony on Hispaniola, Saint-Domingue (later Haiti), to be governed, briefly, by Black former slaves as a French protectorate.

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Toussaint Louverture, Louverture also spelled L’Ouverture, original name (until c. 1793) François Dominique Toussaint, (born c. 1743, Breda, near Cap-Francais, Saint-Domingue [Haiti]—died April 7, 1803, Fort-de-Joux, France), leader of the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution (1787–99). He emancipated the slaves and negotiated for the French colony on Hispaniola, Saint-Domingue (later Haiti), to be governed, briefly, by Black former slaves as a French protectorate.

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Toussaint Louverture, Louverture also spelled L'Ouverture, original name (until c. 1793) François Dominique Toussaint, (born c. 1743, Bréda, near Cap-Français, Saint-Domingue [Haiti]-died April 7, 1803, Fort-de-Joux, France), leader of the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution (1787-99). He emancipated the slaves and negotiated for the French colony on Hispaniola, Saint-Domingue (later Haiti), to be governed, briefly, by Black former slaves as a French protectorate.

Rise to power

Toussaint was the son of an educated slave. He acquired through Jesuit contacts some knowledge of French, though he wrote and spoke it poorly, usually employing Haitian Creole and African tribal language. Winning the favour of the plantation manager, he became a livestock handler, healer, coachman, and finally steward. Legally freed in 1776, he married and had two sons. Toussaint was homely, short, and small framed. He was a fervent Roman Catholic, opposed to Vodou (Voodoo). He dressed simply and was abstemious and a vegetarian. Although he slept little, his energy and capacity for work were astonishing. As a leader he inspired awe and adulation.

When a sudden slave revolt began in the northern province (August 1791) and soon spread to encompass thousands of slaves across the colony, Toussaint was at first uncommitted. After hesitating a few weeks, he helped his former master escape and then joined the Black forces who were burning plantations and killing many Europeans and mulattoes (people of mixed African and European ancestry). He soon discerned the ineptitude of the rebel leaders and scorned their willingness to compromise with European radicals. Collecting an army of his own, Toussaint trained his followers in the tactics of guerrilla warfare. In 1793 he added to his original name the name of Louverture; the name's exact significance is unknown, but its meaning in French, "opening," may have referred to his tactical ability as a military commander.

When France and Spain went to war in 1793, the Black commanders joined the Spaniards of Santo Domingo, the eastern two-thirds of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic). Knighted and recognized as a general, Toussaint demonstrated extraordinary military ability and attracted such renowned warriors as his nephew Moïse and two future monarchs of Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe. Toussaint's victories in the north, together with mulatto successes in the south and British occupation of the coasts, brought the French close to disaster. Yet, in May 1794, Toussaint went over to the French, giving as his reasons that the French National Convention had recently freed all slaves, while Spain and Britain refused, and that he had become a republican. He has been criticized for the duplicity of his dealings with his onetime allies and for a slaughter of Spaniards at a mass. His switch was decisive: the governor of Saint-Domingue, Étienne Laveaux, made Toussaint lieutenant governor; the British suffered severe reverses; and the Spaniards were expelled.

By 1795 Toussaint Louverture was widely renowned. He was adored by Blacks and appreciated by most Europeans and mulattoes, for he did much to restore the economy. Defying French Revolutionary laws, he allowed many émigré planters to return, and he used military discipline to force the former slaves to work. Convinced that people were naturally corrupt, he felt that compulsion was needed to prevent idleness. Yet the labourers were no longer whipped: they were legally free and equal, and they shared the profits of the restored plantations. Racial tensions were eased because Toussaint preached reconciliation and believed that Blacks, a majority of whom were African born, had to learn from Europeans and Europeanized mulattoes.

Elimination of rivals

Though he worked well with Laveaux, Toussaint eased him out in 1796. Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, a terrorist French commissioner, allowed Toussaint to rule and made him governor-general. But the ascetic Black general was repelled by the proposals of the European radical to exterminate the Europeans, and he was offended by Sonthonax's atheism, coarseness, and immorality. After some devious maneuvers, Toussaint forced Sonthonax out in 1797.

Next to go were the British, whose losses caused them to negotiate secretly with Toussaint, notwithstanding the war with France. Treaties in 1798 and 1799 secured their complete withdrawal. Lucrative trade was begun with Britain and with the United States. In return for arms and goods, Toussaint sold sugar and promised not to invade Jamaica or the American South. The British offered to recognize him as king of an independent Haiti, but, scornful of pompous titles and distrustful of the British because they maintained slavery, he refused.

Toussaint soon rid himself of another nominal French superior, Gabriel Hédouville, who arrived in 1798 as representative of the Directory (the French Revolutionary government). Knowing that France had no chance of restoring colonialism as long as the war with England continued, Hédouville attempted to pit against Toussaint the mulatto leader André Rigaud, who ruled a semi-independent state in the south. Toussaint divined his purpose and forced Hédouville to flee. Succeeding Hédouville was Philippe Roume, who deferred to the Black governor. Then a bloody campaign in 1799 eliminated another potential rival to Toussaint by driving Rigaud out and destroying his mulatto state. A purge that was carried out by Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the south was so brutal that reconciliation with the mulattoes was impossible.

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Toussaint Louverture | Biography, Significance, & Facts

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Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian independence movement during the French Revolution (1787-99). He emancipated the slaves and negotiated for the French colony on Hispaniola, Saint-Domingue (later Haiti), to be governed, briefly, by Black former slaves as a French protectorate.

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What was the Haitian Revolution?

Why did the Haitian Revolution start?

How is the Haitian Revolution related to the French Revolution?

Who did the Haitian Revolution involve?

Why is the Haitian Revolution important?

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Haitian Revolution, series of conflicts between 1791 and 1804 between Haitian slaves, colonists, the armies of the British and French colonizers, and a number of other parties. Through the struggle, the Haitian people ultimately won independence from France and thereby became the first country to be founded by former slaves.

Colonial rule and slavery

The Spanish began to enslave the native Taino and Ciboney people soon after December 1492, when Italian navigator Christopher Columbus sighted the island that he called La Isla Española ("The Spanish Island"; later Anglicized as Hispaniola.) The island's indigenous population, forced to mine for gold, was devastated by European diseases and brutal working conditions, and by the end of the 16th century the people had virtually vanished. Thousands of slaves imported from other Caribbean islands met the same fate.

After the main gold mines were exhausted, the Spanish were succeeded by the French, who established their own permanent settlements, including Port-de-Paix (1665) in the northwest, and the French West Indies Corporation took control of the area. Landowners in western Hispaniola imported increasing numbers of African slaves, who totaled about 5,000 in the late 17th century. By 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, the estimated population of Saint-Domingue, as the French called their colony, was 556,000 and included roughly 500,000 African slaves, 32,000 European colonists, and 24,000 affranchis (free mulattoes [people of mixed African and European descent] or blacks).

Haitian society was deeply fragmented by skin colour, class, and gender. The affranchis, most of them mulattoes, were sometimes slave owners themselves and aspired to the economic and social levels of the Europeans. They feared and spurned the slave majority but were generally discriminated against by the white European colonists, who were merchants, landowners, overseers, craftsmen, and the like. The aspirations of the affranchis became a major factor in the colony's struggle for independence. A large part of the slave population was African-born, from a number of West African peoples. The vast majority worked in the fields; others were household servants, boilermen (at the sugar mills), and even slave drivers. Slaves endured long, backbreaking workdays and often died from injuries, infections, and tropical diseases. Malnutrition and starvation also were common. Some slaves managed to escape into the mountainous interior, where they became known as Maroons and fought guerrilla battles against colonial militia.

Factional conflict and the rise of Toussaint Louverture

Against this background arose a revolution, beginning as a series of conflicts from the early 1790s. Among the causes of the conflicts were the affranchis' frustrations with a racist society, turmoil created in the colony by the French Revolution, nationalistic rhetoric expressed during Vodou ceremonies, the continuing brutality of slave owners, and wars between European powers. Vincent Ogé, a mulatto who had lobbied the Parisian assembly for colonial reforms, led an uprising in late 1790 but was captured, tortured, and executed.

In May 1791 the French revolutionary government granted citizenship to the wealthier affranchis, but Haiti's European population disregarded the law. Within two months isolated fighting broke out between Europeans and affranchis, and in August thousands of slaves rose in rebellion. The Europeans attempted to appease the mulattoes in order to quell the slave revolt, and the French assembly granted citizenship to all affranchis in April 1792. The country was torn by rival factions, some of which were supported by Spanish colonists in Santo Domingo (on the eastern side of the island, which later became the Dominican Republic) or by British troops from Jamaica. In 1793 a commissioner, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, was sent from France to maintain order and offered freedom to slaves who joined his army; he soon abolished slavery altogether, a decision confirmed the following year by the French government.

In the late 1790s Toussaint Louverture, a military leader and former slave, gained control of several areas and earned the initial support of French agents. He gave nominal allegiance to France while pursuing his own political and military designs, which included negotiating with the British. In January 1801 Toussaint conquered Santo Domingo, and in May of that year, he had himself named "governor-general for life." He put the peasants back to work on the plantations under military rule and encouraged many of the French proprietors to return. In December 1801 Napoléon Bonaparte (later Napoleon I), wishing to maintain control of the island, attempted to restore the old regime (and European rule) by sending his brother-in-law, Gen. Charles Leclerc, with an experienced force from Saint-Domingue that included Alexandre Sabès Pétion and several other exiled mulatto officers. Toussaint struggled for several months against Leclerc's forces before agreeing to an armistice in May 1802; however, the French broke the agreement and imprisoned him in France. He died on April 7, 1803.

Independent Haiti

Some of Toussaint's lieutenants-most notably Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe- resumed the war against the French in 1802. They were soon joined by Pétion and other mulatto leaders, who were infuriated by the restoration of the restrictions on their caste. Both the blacks and the mulattoes were enraged by reports that France had reestablished slavery in Guadeloupe and Martinique, and the struggle was carried on with great desperation. The French were weakened by an epidemic of yellow fever-Leclerc succumbed to the disease in November 1802-and the conclusion of the Louisiana Purchase in May 1803 signaled Napoleon's intention to withdraw from North America. Less than three weeks later, the French position in Haiti became truly hopeless with the renewal of hostilities between France and Britain on May 18, 1803.

On November 18 the Armée indigène (French: "Indigenous Army") under Dessalines defeated the French at the Battle of Vertières, and French Gen. Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, surrendered Cap-Français (now Cap-Haïtien), the last significant French stronghold. Under the terms of the surrender, the French were given 10 days to evacuate, but Rochambeau showed no haste in embarking his troops. Dessalines responded by threatening to turn his cannons on the French ships at anchor in Cap-Français harbour. Ironically, it would fall to the Royal Navy, which had been blockading Saint-Domingue since the resumption of the Napoleonic Wars, to carry out the evacuation. British Capt. John Bligh treated with both Rochambeau and Dessalines, and the French garrison finally departed Cap-Français as British prisoners. While this marked the end of French military action on Haiti, France continued to maintain a presence in the eastern part of the island until 1809.

On January 1, 1804, the entire island was declared independent under the Arawak-derived name of Haiti. Many European powers and their Caribbean surrogates ostracized Haiti, fearing the spread of slave revolts, whereas reaction in the United States was mixed; slave-owning states did all they could to suppress news of the rebellion, but merchants in the free states hoped to trade with Haiti rather than with European powers. More important, nearly the entire population was utterly destitute-a legacy of slavery that has continued to have a profound impact on Haitian history.

In October 1804 Dessalines assumed the title of Emperor Jacques I, but in October 1806 he was killed while trying to suppress a mulatto revolt, and Henry Christophe took control of the kingdom from his capital in the north. Civil war then broke out between Christophe and Sabès Pétion, who was based at Port-au-Prince in the south. Christophe, who declared himself King Henry I in 1811, managed to improve the country's economy but at the cost of forcing former slaves to return to work on the plantations. He built a spectacular palace (Sans Souci) as well as an imposing fortress (La Citadelle Laferrière) in the hills to the south of the city of Cap-Haïtien, where, with mutinous soldiers almost at his door, he committed suicide in 1820. It was not until 1825 that France recognized Haiti's independence, and then only in exchange for a large indemnity of 100 million francs, with a repayment period until 1887.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Michael Ray.

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Haitian Revolution | Causes, Summary, & Facts

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Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), series of conflicts between Haitian slaves, colonists, the armies of the British and French colonizers, and a number of other parties. Through the struggle, the Haitian people ultimately won independence from France and thereby became the first country to be founded by former slaves.

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The 200th anniversary of Brazil's Independence