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e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL12 N2, TD1

Thematic dossier 200 years after the Revolution (1820-2020)

December 2021

EDITORIAL

200 YEARS AFTER THE REVOLUTION (1820-2020)

JOSÉ SUBTIL

jsubtil@autonoma.pt

He holds a Bachelor Degree in History from the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Lisbon

and a Master Degree in History of the 19th and 20th centuries from the FCSH, UNL. He has a

Ph.D. in Modern Political and Institutional History and is an Associate in the History Group, at the

same Faculty. He was Coordinating Professor with Aggregation at Viana do Castelo Polytechnic

Institute. He is currently Full Professor at Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa (Portugal) and has

been elected President of the Scientific Council. He held various public positions, including as

Deputy General Secretary of the Ministry of Finance (1997-2000), member of the Commission for

the Reform and Resettlement of the Torre do Tombo National Archives and Director of Services at

the Portuguese Institute of Archives (1990-1992). He was National Coordinator of the

Accreditation Commission and member of the Board of the National Institute for the Accreditation

of Teacher Training. He has dozens of individual and collective publications, books, book chapters

and articles. He received the Academic Merit Award from the Fernão de Magalhães Foundation in

1996 and 1997 and four public accolades.

CLÁUDIA ATALLAH

clauatallah@gmail.com

She is Associate Professor at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF, Brazil) and Permanent

Professor at the Postgraduate Programme in Social History at the State University of Rio de

Janeiro (UERJ). She has a Bachelor Degree in History and a Master Degree in History from the

State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). She holds a Ph.D. in History from UFF, with the thesis

“Da justiça em nome d’El Rey: justiça, ouvidores e inconfidência em Minas Gerais (Sabará, 1720-

1777)”, published by EdUERJ (2016) with FAPERJ funding. She published the compilations

Justiças, Governo e Bem Comum na administração dos Impérios Ibéricos de Antigo Regime

(séculos XV-XVIII) with Junia Furtado and Patrícia Silveira (2016); Estratégias de poder na

América portuguesa: dimensões da cultura política séculos XVII-XIX), with Helidacy Corrêa

(2010).

SARITA MOTA

saritamota@gmail.com

She is a researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES), at the University

Institute of Lisbon (IUL, Portugal), where she coordinates the project “Terra, Poder e

Territorialidades na América Portuguesa (séc. XVI-XIX)” and the Permanent Seminar Cycle

“Cidades e Impérios: dinâmicas locais, fluxos globais”. She has a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from

the Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), with a thesis on the legal institutes of land

ownership in Brazil (16th-19th centuries). She has a Bachelor Degree in History and a Master

Degree in Social Sciences, both from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). She is the

author of articles, book chapters and entries in collective works, and her last article is entitled

“Entre la ley y la práctica: antíguos y nuevos usos del Registro Parroquial em Brasil”, HAAL,

2(02), 103-128 , 2021.

RODRIGO DA COSTA DOMINGUEZ

rcdominguez@ics.uminho.pt

Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez has a degree in History from the University Centre of Belo Horizonte

– Uni-BH (2001). He holds a Master degree in Medieval and Renaissance History (2006) and a

Ph.D. in History (2013), both degrees awarded by the Faculty of Humanities of the University of

Porto. He is currently a Junior Researcher and Deputy Coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Centre

for Social Sciences (CICS.NOVA.UMinho, Portugal), at the University of Minho. His research and

publications include the taxation of the Portuguese Crown, trade and maritime transport, and

Portugal's long-term fiscal and financial institutional policies (15th-19th centuries). He is co-

editor of Portugal in a European Context - Essays on Taxation and Fiscal Policies in Late Medieval

and Early Modern Western Europe, c. 1100-1700 (Palgrave Macmillan, in press) and author

of Fiscal Policy in Early Modern Europe: Portugal in Comparative Context (Routledge, 2019).

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL12 N2, TD1

Thematic dossier – 200 years after the Revolution (1820-2020), December 2021, pp. 1-5

Editorial

José Subtil, Cláudia Atallah, Sarita Mota, Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

EDITORIAL

200 YEARS AFTER THE REVOLUTION (1820-2020)

JOSÉ SUBTIL

CLÁUDIA ATALLAH

SARITA MOTA

RODRIGO DA COSTA DOMINGUEZ

In 2020, we highlighted the 200 years of the Liberal Revolution, one of the essential

historiographical landmarks in the History of Portugal and Brazil. We did this by

organizing an inter-university webinar that was attended by researchers from both sides

of the Atlantic.

In the words of German historian Sebastian Conrad, the organizers strove to create a

broad and universal approach to this historic event, bypassing the pitfalls of Eurocentrism

and biased interpretations with a perspective linked to the development of the «nation-

states» of the 19th century. In this sense, the participation of different specialists in the

various panels was essential, allowing the participants and, consequently, the readers of

this thematic issue of the janus.net journal, to have a comparative, balanced and

multilateral view. This view encompasses both issues directly related to the Portuguese

context, immediately before and after the revolution, and aspects regarding its

developments and impacts in different contexts, in different chronologies and in different

parts of the Atlantic.

On the other hand, an important bias to be highlighted is the complex process of political

paradigm shift from the mid-eighteenth century, where doctrines, practices and

symbolism typical of the Ancien Régime Iberian began to shift towards a Liberal State.

The text by Patrícia Valim (Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto) on the crime of lese-

majesty and its application in the Conjuração Baiana/Bahia’s Conspiracy (1798)

highlights the process of transformation. The author sheds light on the transition from

legal pluralism to the professionalization of the legal field, with an emphasis on national

law and on the conception of legislative and penal rectitude. It pays attention to the

interpretations and jurisprudence that emerged from the discussions around the process

of judging those involved in the revolt, within a context of rationalization of the legal

logic and the revisionism of the State's punitive action, less and less tied to the idea of

“personal” justice of the monarch and closer to clear, detailed procedures carried out

within properly delimited institutional contours and legal procedures under the auspices

of Good Reason.

Editorial translated by Carolina Peralta.

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL12 N2, TD1

Thematic dossier – 200 years after the Revolution (1820-2020), December 2021, pp. 1-5

Editorial

José Subtil, Cláudia Atallah, Sarita Mota, Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

In the author's words, the desecration of the hereditary divine right ended up generating

a new political economy of the king's punitive power. In fact, the analysis of the inquest's

records exposes the reach of the ideals of freedom and equality at the end of the Ancien

Régime, especially the contradictions of magistrates involved in illicit practices, the

intricacies of justice and monarchical power, as well as the political rearrangements in

Salvador’s society. Despite the negotiation between the crown and the local elites to

repress the “projected revolution” and the “Bahia Republic”, the punishment fell on four

free men, poor, pardos and occupants of low-ranking military posts.

These sentenced figures, the “Beings of Liberty”, are not treated as “martyrs”; on the

contrary, the public ritual of torture attests the despotic absolutism of the time, the

submission of subjects to the sumptuousness of the crown, the weight of social

hierarchies supported by slavery, political control and the limits of republican ideals.

In the context of the Lei da Boa Razão/Law of Good Reason (1769), the article by Cláudia

Atallah (Universidade Federal Fluminense) describes this same changing legal scenario

by analysing the applicability of common law after the institution of the aforementioned

law, which would clearly demarcate the political rationalism desired by the reforms of

Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo. The strengthening of the State should necessarily go

through the specialization of the legal field and the professionalism of its agents. At first,

the author makes a balance of the historiography on the so-called Pombal’s ministry,

problematizing the discussions about the rupture nature (or not) attributed to the period

in question. Following her analysis, she presents us with a case study on the impacts of

that law on the legal universe of Portuguese America, giving an opinion by D. Rodrigo

José de Menezes e Castro, governor of the captaincy of Minas Gerais, sent to Martinho

de Melo e Castro, Secretary of State for the Navy and Overseas of the Kingdom of

Portugal (1783). In the document, Menezes e Castro describes the difficulties in enforcing

the royal law and the peculiarities of governing the colonial hinterlands. The author also

analyses the increase in requests for proof of common law that reached the Overseas

Council in the thirty years after the Law of Good Reason.

The text by Maria do Socorro Ferraz (Universidade Federal de Pernambuco) analyses

the political-administrative disputes in Pernambuco regarding the handling of the

captaincy, considering its relations with two important centres of power, Rio de Janeiro

and Lisbon. Both cities were going through moments of great political and social tension,

with the Pernambuco Insurrection of 1817 and the creation of the Sinédrio (Sanhedrin)

in Portugal in 1818. Her paper also describes the impact of the presence of the

Portuguese Court and the decisions taken on political and economic issues that concerned

Pernambuco, clarifying the positions between "monarchist" liberals and "republican"

liberals. Among the factors that triggered the Pernambuco Revolution was the discontent

of the landowning class with the Portuguese governor Caetano Pinto de Miranda

Montenegro's treasury administration, the excess of taxation and the transfer of colonial

income. Also symptomatic is the circulation of a new political vocabulary influenced by

liberal American and French literature: terms such as “royal tyranny”, “manifesting

injustice”, “oppression”, “nation”, “brave patriots”, “social rights” and “organic laws”,

used by the revolutionaries to rally popular support. The movement was responsible for

strong political repression and numerous arrests of liberals from Pernambuco: the leaders

were sentenced to the death penalty; others were sent to exile in Africa and incarcerated

in several prisons in Brazil, while others were sent to Lisbon on charges of being

supporters of independence.

The work of Telma Ruas (Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa) focuses on the analysis of

the "subsídio literário" (literary subsidy) tax, a tax created by Pombal’s reform to support

the teaching strategy and which prevailed after the liberal revolution, despite the heated

debates for the its extinction. The defence of the tax, in view of the difficulties of the

State's finances, was based on the promotion of primary education and based its

intention on the fulfilment of fiscal duties. The subsistence of this tax was decisive for

the education system and underlined the financial importance of the contribution which,

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL12 N2, TD1

Thematic dossier – 200 years after the Revolution (1820-2020), December 2021, pp. 1-5

Editorial

José Subtil, Cláudia Atallah, Sarita Mota, Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

as the author says, “founded the demands for the creation of elementary schools and

secondary education courses, calling for compliance with the norms related to tax

contribution”, both through individual and collective petitions that reached the Cortes.

The subsídio literário tax ended up allowing municipalities to use their contributions in

elementary education and the acquisition of technical skills to leverage development and

economic growth in line with the essential values of the ideas of freedom, equality and

justice. With this work, one more field of continuity between the Ancien Régime and

Liberalism was evidenced in one of the fundamental areas for the constitutional

monarchy.

The article by Ana Cristina Araújo (University of Coimbra) focuses on three associations

that, at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, contributed to

the construction of networks of public social organizations, providing, therefore, the

debate of ideas about the philosophical modernity of the Enlightenment: the Mancebos

Patriotas society based in Coimbra (1780), the Montepio Literário (1813) and the

Sociedade Patriótica Literária de Lisboa (1822). These philanthropic associations stood

out, above all, in the dissemination and political and social communication within a public

atmosphere emerging from the transformations that were, in the words of the author,

taking place "in the spaces, agents and mechanisms of literary, cultural, scientific and

sociability politics in Portuguese society. All this under the influence of the Enlightenment,

marked by new perceptions of encyclopaedist culture and philosophy, and taking into

account the well-known channels of access to foreign printed production through the

clandestine circulation of books, periodicals, literary and theatre novelties”. This civic

participation grew in leisure spaces and in literary gatherings fed by cultural elites who

also ended up operating changes in the way knowledge was shared, and in the use of

social interactions to improve debate and political and social criticism. These new forms

of sociability have therefore become central to the reinforcement of modernity and as a

support for liberal ideas.

The work of Luís Tomé (Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa) focuses on the various

international orders limited in time and space which, arising from liberal revolutions,

inspired new doctrines and ideologies that would mark the emergence of para-

democratic, liberal regimes, the Nation-State, multilateralism and institutionalism, In the

author's words, this “would mark several and distinct worldviews on the “international

order” that emerged in Europe and spread as a result of the colonial domination and

expansion of the European powers”. The matrix of this liberal international order, which

does not mean “world order”, is dominated by the American model and reflects the values

and interests of its culture. However, the contradictions and paradoxes of the liberal

order led to its deconstruction, especially given the “economic hyper globalization” that

legitimized certain autocracies and favoured the growth of world power in China. This

country, together with Russia, export authoritarianism and the doctrine of “non-

interference in internal affairs”, which ended up subverting the principles of coexistence

of nations in respect for international rules. We are, therefore, facing a work that invites

us to reflect on the externalization of liberal revolutions, which is quite evident in the

case of the liberal revolution in Portugal.

The study by António Pedro Manique (Instituto Politécnico de Santarém) addresses

the right to dissolve the elective chambers of parliaments which, in Portugal, according

to the Constitution of 1826, belonged to the so-called “fourth power”, the moderating

power that coexisted with the traditional legislative, executive and judicial powers. This

power, in addition to the tripartite division, belonged exclusively to the monarch, in

addition to the executive power, of which he was the head. In this sense, one of the royal

powers within the scope of this moderating power was the dissolution of the Chamber of

Deputies when the reasons for the “salvation of the State” required it, therefore, only in

exceptional situations. The author points out that this royal prerogative became

trivialized, “becoming a political instrument used by governments to obtain parliamentary

majorities through the use of fraudulent elections”. Thus, António Pedro Manique

JANUS.NET, e-journal of International Relations

e-ISSN: 1647-7251

VOL12 N2, TD1

Thematic dossier – 200 years after the Revolution (1820-2020), December 2021, pp. 1-5

Editorial

José Subtil, Cláudia Atallah, Sarita Mota, Rodrigo da Costa Dominguez

demonstrates that political practice has distorted constitutional principles to become a

central mechanism of the liberal regime. He analyses the ten dissolutions of the Chamber

of Deputies decreed between 1834 and 1865, highlighting the “enormous interval that

separates the formal constitution from the real constitution that results from the political

practices of the agents of power and the institutions themselves”. The author draws our

attention to the difficulties and distortions caused by the formal interpretations of

constitutional documents if we do not take into account the dimension of political

practices.

José Subtil (Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa) chose to address the central problem of

liberals in the debate on the justice regime, that is, the choice between judges of law and

popular judges. The author drew four main conclusions. The first concerns the fact that

this debate has provided the marking of the boundary between the group of more radical

liberals, the moderates and the conservative/traditionalists. The second conclusion is that

the defence of popular judges was, above all, ideological and had two political

presuppositions: the violent criticism of the royal magistracy of the Ancien Régime and

the defence of a justice that was movable by vote and transitory during the exercise

period. The third conclusion reveals that the constitutional models and the laws of

organization of justice never had a practical manifestation until the Newest Reform

(1841). And, finally, that liberalism would end up adopting a model based on judges of

law, moving away from populism, although it accepted a mitigated version of popular

judges, the so-called judges de facto (jurors). Therefore, this work outlines the general

framework of the debate on justice for liberals and also a comparison with the model in

force in the Ancien Régime, focusing, for both periods, on the model of election of popular

judges.

Finally, the text by Luís Valença Pinto (Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa) draws our

attention to the understanding that the war contributed to the evolution of the concept

of security influenced by ideas related to liberalism and democracy (national security,

collective security, cooperative security), attentive to the human dimension. Two

circumstances together define the matrix of this relationship. On the one hand, the

increasingly liberal nature of the political and strategic context and, on the other hand,

the growing correlation and subordination of security to this context.

The editorial team of this thematic issue is pleased to offer readers this issue

commemorating the liberal revolution of 1820, which reflects an interdisciplinary effort

to problematize plural knowledge, anchored in the dialogue between the areas of History,

Law, Culture and International Relations.

How to cite this editorial

Subtil, José; Atallah, Cláudia; Mota, Sarita; Dominguez, Rodrigo da Costa (2021). Editorial:

200 years after the Revolution (1820-2020). Janus.net, e-journal of international relations.

VOL12 N2, TD1 - Thematic dossier 200 years after the Revolution (1820-2020), December

2021. Consulted [online] on date of the last view, https://doi.org/10.26619/1647-

7251.DT0121ED