Naval battle and rebellion preceded Independence in BA – 06/26/2023 – Politics

The weeks leading up to the consolidation of the Independence of Brazil in Bahia were marked by naval battles, tactical disputes over land, escapes and instabilities that included a rebellion by Brazilian officers against their own commander.

There were days of tension until the 2nd of July 1823, the day on which the Portuguese troops were expelled from Salvador. The date completes 200 years next week and will be celebrated in the streets of the capital of Bahia with a calendar of festive, cultural, civic and academic events.

The War for Independence in Bahia has its genesis in an uprising that was put down by Portuguese troops in February 1922, seven months before the Grito do Ipiranga. The Bahians organized resistance in the Recôncavo region and advanced to retake the capital.

The Brazilian victories at the Battle of Pirajá and at the Battle of Itaparica marked the decline of Portuguese troops in Bahia. But until the consolidation of Independence, a lot of gunpowder and ammunition were spent in combats on land and sea around Salvador.

The main naval battle took place on May 4, 1823. The Brazilian squadron, which had been hastily formed by d. Pedro 1st, was led by Lord Thomas Cochrane, a Scottish admiral who had experience in the British Navy and participated in the struggle for independence in Chile.

The formation of a squadron was considered essential for maintaining the integrity of the mainland, since communications between urban centers mostly took place by sea.

“At that time we didn’t have highways, roads that were reasonable, not even railroads. To get there [em Salvador]only by ship and traveling by sea,” explains Lieutenant Anderson de Rieti, historian of the Navy’s Directorate of Historical Heritage and Documentation.

The ships of the Brazilian Squadron arrived in Bahia on April 24th and joined the Itaparicana Flotilla, a group of small vessels, mainly sloops, that helped the Brazilian troops. The flotilla was led by captain-lieutenant João das Botas, a Portuguese man who joined the cause of Independence.

On the other side, there was the Portuguese Squadron, which had been reinforced in the previous months and was commanded by João Félix Pereira dos Campos. He was subordinate to the Portuguese Brigadier Inácio Luís Madeira de Melo, then Governor of Arms of Bahia.

It was around 6 am when the sailors of the Imperial Fleet saw the first Portuguese ships. The combat began around 11 am, when the Pedro 1st ship fired the first shot at an enemy frigate, which retaliated with bullets, grenades and mortars.

The Portuguese were in numerical superiority: there were 7 Brazilian ships against 13 Portuguese ships. But the battle ended without a winner: Admiral Thomas Cochrane followed with the squadron to Morro de São Paulo, where he docked to recover the damage to the ships.

In the following month, land battles gained importance in attacks on the Portuguese army in the regions of Brotas, Rio Vermelho and Pituba. The victory of the Brazilians resulted in the occupation of the village of Rio Vermelho, bringing the troops even closer to the urban center of the capital of Bahia.

In the political field, the climate was unstable. On the Portuguese side, General Madeira de Melo endorsed a proposal that declared Salvador a “place of war and in a state of siege”, a measure that emptied the civil governing board and gave it full powers.

Among Brazilians, the Interim Council that governed from the city of Cachoeira had a disagreement with General Pierre Labatut, a French mercenary who led the Brazilian troops.

In May 1823, upon being informed about an alleged conspiracy, Labatut ordered the arrest of Colonel Felisberto Gomes Caldeira, commander of one of the brigades, who was sent to a fortress on the Island of Itaparica.

The arrest resulted in a rebellion by the Brazilian officers, who no longer carried out the orders of the French mercenary and decided to depose him. Labatut was arrested on May 20th and did not participate in the capture of Salvador on July 2nd, 1823.

The rigidity in Labatut’s methods, the reputation of being violent and the fact that the general did not report to the provisional government created indisposition with Brazilian officers. There were also criticisms from landowners regarding the use of enslaved people as soldiers.

With Labatut arrested, the Brazilian troops began to be led by the Bahian Colonel José Joaquim de Lima e Silva, who reorganized the troops.

The scenario was a total siege of Salvador, which prevented the arrival of supplies for the Portuguese, including food. Scarcity has driven up the price of food, causing hunger and disease.

There were also difficulties on the Brazilian side, despite the support of large landowners in the Recôncavo. As historian Luís Henrique Dias Tavares (1926-2020) points out, the Brazilian army had around 10,000 men, which required the slaughter of at least 40 oxen per day to feed the troops.

On May 28, Lima e Silva wrote a proclamation to the Portuguese and issued an ultimatum: he said that the enemy troops were “in the most deplorable state” and called on the Portuguese to lay down their arms, promising that there would be no “grudge or personal hatred”.

Brazilian officers negotiated a non-combat capitulation of General Madeira de Melo. The Portuguese did not accept the terms, as he was waiting for reinforcements from Portugal. As support did not arrive, the general began planning for a mass escape from Salvador.

Historian Sérgio Guerra Filho, professor at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia, says that at least 8,000 Portuguese left the Bahian capital on the eve of Independence, but the number could reach 10,000, since there are records of the departure of boats that do not inform the number of passengers.

“It’s no small feat for a moment like this. Salvador had about 60,000 inhabitants. One-sixth of the city evacuated in a hundred boats heading to Portugal”, he says.

Madeira de Melo’s troops boarded their ships and left Bahia at dawn on July 2, 1823, being pursued by the Brazilian squadron. In the following hours, on a sunny morning, troops from the Pacific Army entered Salvador to applause.

Among officers and soldiers in uniform, there were “men barefoot and almost naked, showing in the misery of the rags the greatness of their sacrifices”, pointed out decades later the historian Tobias Monteiro.

They took the same path that will be repeated on the 2nd of July, when the streets between Largo da Lapinha and Praça da Sé will be taken over by Bahians who will celebrate the popular character of Independence.