1808: The Flight of the Emperor by Laurentino Gomes Page B

disinclined to decipher the elaborate academic language that permeates many existing works on 1808 and its consequences. The most important book about this period is D. João VI in Brazil by diplomat and historian Manuel de Oliveira Lima. Published in 1908, it is both erudite and fundamental, a study unequalled in the depth of its content. De Oliveira Lima’s dry style, however, makes it tiring even for readers familiar with the peculiar language of postgraduate dissertations. Curiously the two most recent and accessible books on the topic appeared in English: Empire Adrift by Australian journalist Patrick Wilcken and Tropical Versailles by historian Kirsten Schulz. 1
    Aside from their typically academic language, historians who examine this period often present a semantic question: Did the Portuguese court move or flee to Brazil? Which term more properly defines what happened between November 1807 and July 1821, the dates of Jõao VI’s departure from and return to Portugal? They never have reached agreement on this point. De Oliveira Lima refers to the “translocation of the court.” Luiz Norton calls it a “voluntary transfer” and a “transposition of the Portuguese seat.” Ângelo Pereira speaks of “the removal of the royal family to Brazil.” Tobias Monteiro treats it as a “transplant.” Others use expressions like “transmigration” or “moving,” all of them either seeking to minimize—or doing so ­unknowingly—the military influence of a certain general from Corsica. I refer to the event as a flight in the wake of historians Pereira da Silva, Jurandir Malerba, and Lília Moritz Schwarcz, among others. 2
    Although transferring the court to Brazil was an old plan in Portugal, in 1807 the prince regent had little choice: Flee or be apprehended and deposed as happened a few months later with the Spanish monarchy. If no alternative presented itself, then no justification exists for the use of semantic acrobatics to downplay or disguise what happened: a pure and simple fugue, disorderly, rushed, and subject to improvisation and errors. So great was the commotion of departure that hundreds of crates of the Church’s silver and thousands of precious volumes of the Royal Library, among other items, lay forgotten on the docks of Belém in Lisbon. The French invaders melted down the silver, which the English recovered some months later. The books arrived in Brazil only in 1811.
    While the events of the past remain immutable, their interpretation depends on the tireless investigations of researchers and also on the judgment of future readers. In the case of João VI and the flight of the court, even if two centuries have elapsed, new facts have emerged. Among the important contributions recorded in recent years are the complete transcriptions of the onboard diaries of the British ships accompanying the royal family to Brazil, completed in 1995 by Kenneth H. Light. This work helps resolve some previously nebulous points regarding the crossing of the Atlantic. Equally relevant are the interpretations of historian Jurandir Malerba, author of The Court in Exile , which show how the pomp and ritual of the Portuguese court in Rio helped legitimize and consolidate their power in the tropics.
    The work of historians such as Mary Karasch, Leila Mezan Algranti, Manolo Garcia Florentino, and João Luis Ribeiro Fragoso stand out for their decisive contributions to more specific themes such as slave trafficking and the accumulation of wealth in João VI’s Brazil. In this same line, the research of architect Nireu Cavalcanti and historian Jean Marcel Carvalho França enrich our understanding of colonial Rio de Janeiro. All of these scholars have dedicated themselves to the patient, difficult work of investigating primary sources, such as official documents, diplomatic correspondences, post-mortem inventories, and letters and diaries stored