John’s reluctance to return was at last overcome. Leaving his elder son Peter to govern Brazil, John landed at Lisbon on July 3, 1821. He swore to uphold the constitution, but his wife, Carlota Joaquina, and their second son, Michael, refused to take the oath and were sentenced to banishment, though this was not carried out. The Portuguese constitutionalists, not appreciating the determination of Brazil not to yield its status as a kingdom, sought to compel Pedro to return, but, rather than sacrifice the rule of the Braganças in Brazil, he declared Brazilian independence (September 7, 1822) and became emperor of Brazil as Pedro I. This enabled his brother Michael to appeal to absolutist forces in Portugal to overthrow the constitutionalists; an insurrection led by Michael almost succeeded (April 30, 1824), but, through the action of the foreign ministers, John VI was restored and Michael went into exile in Vienna (June 1824). The War of the Two Brothers
John VI acknowledged the independence of Brazil in 1825, assuming pro forma the imperial title and then yielding it to Pedro. However, when John died (March 10, 1826), no provision had been made for the succession except that his daughter Maria Isabel was named regent. Pedro, as Peter IV of Portugal, issued from Brazil a charter providing for a parliamentary regime by the authorization of the monarchy and not based on the sovereignty of the people. He then made a conditional abdication (May 1826) of the Portuguese throne in favour of his seven-year-old daughter Maria da Glória provided that she marry her uncle Michael and swear to accept the charter. This compromise could not be effective. The absolutists had hoped that Pedro would resign all rights to the Portuguese crown, and the council of regency hesitated to publish the charter until General João Carlos de Saldanha (later duque de Saldanha) forced their hand. In 1827 Michael took the oath and was appointed regent; he landed in Lisbon in February 1828, and his supporters at once began to persecute the liberals. A form of the Cortes met in Lisbon and in July 1828 repudiated Pedro’s claims and declared Michael the rightful king.
Only Terceira Island in the Azores sustained the liberal cause. In June 1829, however, a regency on behalf of Maria da Glória was established in Terceira, and in 1831 Pedro, having abdicated the Brazilian throne, went to Europe and began to raise money and an army for the conquest of Portugal. In February 1832 the expedition sailed to Terceira, and in July the liberals, led by Pedro, disembarked at Mindelo near Porto, which they soon occupied. However, the rest of the country stood by Michael, who besieged the liberals in Porto for a year (July 1832–July 1833). By then enthusiasm for Michael had waned, and António José de Sousa Manuel, duque de Terceira, and Captain (later Sir) Charles Napier, who had taken command of the liberal navy, made a successful landing in the Algarve (June 1833). Terceira advanced on Lisbon, which fell in July 1833, and Michael capitulated at Evora-Monte in May 1834. Further political strife
The War of the Two Brothers ended with the exile of Michael (June) and the death of Pedro (September 24, 1834). Maria da Glória became queen as Maria II (1834–53) at age 15. While Maria necessarily came under the influence of the successful generals of the civil war, her principal aim was to defend her father’s charter (which had been granted by the crown) from those who demanded a “democratic” constitution like that of 1822. In September 1836 the latter, thenceforth called Septembrists, seized power. The chartist leaders rebelled and were exiled, but by 1842 the Septembrist front was no longer united, and António Bernardo da Costa Cabral restored the charter.
In 1846 the movement of Maria da Fonte, a popular rising against higher taxation to improve roads and reforms in public health in which almost all parties joined, put an end to Costa Cabral’s government but left Portugal divided between the Septembrists, who held Porto, and Saldanha, now in Queen Maria’s confidence, in Lisbon. Saldanha negotiated for the intervention of other members of the Quadruple Alliance (formed in April 1834 by England, France, Spain, and Portugal), and a combined British and Spanish force received the surrender of the Porto junta in June 1847 and ended the war with the Convention of Gramido (June 29, 1847). Saldanha governed until 1849, when Costa Cabral resumed office only to be overthrown in April 1851. Saldanha then held office again for five years (1851–56), and the period of peace finally allowed the country to settle down. This “Regeneration” ended civil strife and established party government.
Maria II was succeeded by Peter V (1853–61), her eldest son by her second husband, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg. Peter, who married Stephanie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen in 1858, showed promise of being a capable monarch but died of typhoid fever on November 11, 1861. His brother Louis (1861–89) seemed to have inherited a country that had recovered from the Napoleonic invasions and from civil wars, political strife, and pronunciamentos (military coups). But, although the main parties were now defined as Historicals (i.e., radicals) and Regenerators (moderates), the alternation of governments gradually ceased to reflect public feeling, and, in the last years of Louis’s reign, republicanism began to gain ground. Harold V. Livermore The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Overseas empire
Brazil’s independence in 1822 left Portugal’s overseas empire a largely African one, with scattered small holdings in Asia (in western India mainly Goa, Damão [now Daman], and Diu; East Timor in Indonesia; and Macau in South China). Beginning in 1836, Portugal pursued a policy of African territorial expansion and economic enhancement, concentrating first on Angola and later on Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau). Portugal’s role in the European partition of Africa in the late 19th century was limited by its long-standing economic dependence on Great Britain. A colonial movement gained momentum in Lisbon, and a Portuguese scheme known as the “Rose-Coloured Map,” which laid claim to a colony stretching across Africa from Angola to Mozambique, was recognized by France and Germany in 1886. However, Britain challenged Portugal’s claim to territory in central Africa (in what are now Malawi and Zimbabwe) and issued an ultimatum, dated January 11, 1890, demanding the immediate withdrawal of Portuguese forces from the disputed regions. The ultimatum implicitly threatened, in the short run, the use of British naval force and, in the long run, an end to the venerable Anglo-Portuguese alliance, which dated from the late 14th century. The Lisbon government, obliged to comply, subsequently resigned. The ultimatum crisis rocked Portuguese public opinion, heightening imperial fever in the capital and principal towns, compromising the monarchy of King Charles I, and bolstering republicans.
Despite the failure of the central-corridor plan, Portugal retained a large African empire (about 8 percent of the continent). Two Anglo-Portuguese agreements—the 1891 boundary treaty and the so-called Windsor Treaty of October 14, 1899—safeguarded Portugal’s sovereignty over its existing colonies and reaffirmed the ancient alliance. The rise of republicanism
During the period from 1890 to 1910, the relatively stable politics of rotating governments under the constitutional monarchy disintegrated. Feuding monarchist parties and politicians agreed that Portugal faced severe economic, financial, and social problems, but they quarreled over solutions. The republicans increased their support in Lisbon and the larger towns as well as in the rural south. In 1906 João Franco, a prominent politician with reformist plans for saving the monarchy, was appointed premier. Unable to unite the factious monarchists, he began to govern by decree. Franco boldly undertook to reform finance and administration but was accused of illegal money transfers to Charles. These scandals were followed by rumours of further intrigue, and on February 1, 1908, Charles and his heir, Louis Philip, were assassinated in an open carriage in the streets of Lisbon. Whether the regicides were isolated fanatics or agents of a hidden organization such as the Carbonária, a republican secret society, the killings were applauded by the republicans, who immediately began their preparations for a final attack on the monarchy.