This City Was A European Capital, But Is Nowhere Near Europe
Years ago there was a Final Jeopardy clue that caused such a wrinkle in my brain that I still can’t forget it. The category was World Cities and the clue was “Though not located in Europe, this city served as the capital of a European country in the early 1800s.”
The question stumped me at first. I knew it had to be in a colonial outpost of a big empire, and the 19th Century clued me in that it had to be either during the Napoleonic Wars or the 1848 revolutions. I thought about Russia or Spain, both of which fell victim to Napoleon’s ambitions, and then right before time was up the answer came to me. I realized Jeopardy probably used it as a clue because that city was hosting the Summer Olympics that year:
Rio de Janeiro.
At the start of the 19th Century, Brazil was the largest and wealthiest colony in the vast Portuguese Empire. Portugal’s imperial capital was its current one, Lisbon, but from 1807 to 1821, due to a continent-wide war in Europe that spilled into Portugal, the empire’s capital moved from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. This fundamentally changed the South American city forever and set Brazil on a course to independence.
For the previous 50 years, Lisbon had been recovering from a devastating earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the city. As a result of Lisbon’s destruction, much of the empire’s economic growth transferred to the colonies, most notably in Brazil. The devastation from the earthquake triggered an exodus from Portugal to its colonies. At the time, the main Portuguese settlement in Brazil was Salvador, but the discovery of gold and diamonds in Minas Gerais, located just to the west of Rio de Janeiro, moved much of the empire’s commerce down to that city. Portuguese survivors of the earthquake migrated to Rio de Janeiro in search of opportunities in the gold and gem trades. The city grew fast in the late 18th Century. At the time Portugal had a large empire that included Brazil, parts of Africa, India (Goa), and China (Macau). Brazil was its largest and most cherished colonial possession.
The reigning Portuguese monarch at the dawn of the 19th Century, Queen Maria I was 21 years old when the earthquake hit Lisbon and still suffered from emotional and mental trauma from the experience. By 1807, the queen was 72, an advanced age at the time, and was suffering from bouts of severe depression that left her unable to do the job. Her son, John, served as regent. For the better part of the decade, Portugal had been in a cold war with Napoleon. Portugal was forced to give up territory to stop a combined French-Spanish invasion in 1801. Portuguese-French relations had already been bad due to the French Revolution, which, like every other European monarchy, Portugal staunchly opposed.
By 1807, Napoleon had conquered Spain and placed his brother, Joseph, on the Spanish throne. Angry that Portugal wouldn’t join France’s continent-wide blockade of British commerce – Portugal’s location on the Atlantic Ocean made its cooperation vital for the blockade to work – France invaded Portugal with the help of the Spanish. Fearing the royal family might be captured and held by Napoleon, the queen, and prince regent, the entire court and the Portuguese government opted to flee Lisbon, sailing first for Salvador, Brazil, and then Rio de Janeiro.
The royal family left Lisbon on November 29, 1807, two days before Napoleon’s forces invaded the country and two weeks before Lisbon fell to the French. The party arrived in Brazil in January 1808, eventually setting up court at Rio de Janeiro, making it Portugal’s capital. The government and the royal court remained in Rio for the duration of Napoleon’s wars in Europe, and for a while after, finally returning to Lisbon in 1821. By then Maria I had died and her son the regent became King John IV. He returned to Lisbon in 1821 to quash rebellions against him there.
In the 13 years it served as Portugal’s capital, Rio de Janeiro changed from a colonial trading port to a cosmopolitan city on par with the great capitals of Europe and Asia. The Portuguese court built palaces, military academies, theaters and cultural institutions, churches, and other staples of a modern capital city. The Palácio Imperial was constructed for the Portuguese court’s arrival and became their home. The palace later became Brazil’s national museum before it burned down in 2018.
Rio de Janeiro also became the hub of the Atlantic slave trade. Hundreds of thousands of African slaves arrived in the New World via Rio de Janeiro during its years as Portugal’s capital city. From there, they were sent to other parts of the New World, including the Caribbean and the United States.
When King John and the royal family returned to Lisbon in 1821, the removal of the country’s court and government threatened to destroy Rio de Janeiro’s economy and leave the cultural and political institutions obsolete. Brazilians, who felt used and discarded by the Portuguese and inspired by the independence movements that swept the rest of South America against the Spanish Empire, demanded independence. To avoid a costly war and the type of schism the British and Spanish had with their former colonies when they became independent, King John came up with a compromise. His son, Pedro, whom John had made regent of Brazil when he left for Lisbon, would become independent Brazil’s emperor, ensuring a familial connection with Portugal would remain. When John died, Pedro was to inherit the Portuguese throne, further ensuring that although Brazil would remain independent, the two crowns would unite.
Ultimately, to avoid a revolution in Brazil, Pedro abdicated the Portuguese throne immediately after his father died, leaving it to his daughter, Maria II, who reigned as Portugal’s queen from 1826-1828 and again from 1834-1853. Maria was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1819 and remains the only European monarch born outside of Europe.
Pedro reigned as Brazil’s emperor until 1831. He abdicated in favor of his son to lead an army against his brother Miguel in Portugal who had usurped Maria’s throne. His son, Pedro II, reigned until a coup d’etat ended Brazil’s monarchy and made it a republic in 1889 (I plan on doing an article about the fascinating story around this coup in the future). Rio de Janeiro remained Brazil’s capital until 1960 when it moved permanently to a new planned city in Brasilia.
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