The man who more than anyone else symbolized the 48 Springtime of Nations was Giuseppe Garibaldi, also known as one of the founding fathers of a united Italy. Before his great fame, he fought for liberty across the Atlantic ocean, helping a now obscure movement that wanted independence from Brazil and freedom from slavery. We will tell their story here as we cover the Ragamuffin war and South Brazil’s struggle to be free.

In the 19th century South Brazil, the three southernmost states of Paraná, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina was a wild west-like ranching area similar to the nearby Pampas in Argentina. The Gaucho class, individualist migrant farmers often engaging in smuggling and living on the margins of Brazilian society were heavily represented in the frontier towns of this region which once faced the Spanish Empire before the wars of independence that swept the Americas starting in the 1810s. African slaves were also heavily used in the ranching industry, and Brazil had the most slaves in the world at the time. By the time Giuseppe Garibaldi arrived in 1835, the population was augmented by waves of European settlers including Italians. These communities as well as native born Iberians and Pardos were full of men with Enlightenment ideals, and like the Young Europe network of secret societies plotted underground to free Brazil from the slavocrat monarchy that ruled it. Tensions rose further with taxes on the beef exports of the region, and in September of that year, officers with liberal sympathies overthrew the government of Porto Alegre, the capital city of Rio Grande do Sul. In 1836 after a decisive victory against the imperial troops, General Antônio de Sousa Neto read this speech to his Gaucho Horsemen: Brave comrades of the 1st Cavalry Brigade! Yesterday you obtained the most complete triumph over the slaves of the Court of Rio de Janeiro, which, envious of the local advantages of our province, makes mercilessly pour the blood of our compatriots, in order to make her prey to her ambitious sights. Miserable! Whenever their satellites have appeared before the free forces, they have succumbed, without this fatal disappointment making them give up their infernal plans. There are countless injustices made by the Government. Its despotism is the most atrocious. And shall we suffer so much shame? No, comrades, the Rio Grande is willing, like us, not to suffer for the longer time the arrogance of a tyrannical, arbitrary, and cruel government like the present one. In every corner of the province there is no other echo than that of independence, republic, freedom or death. This echo, majestic, which they constantly repeat, as a part of this soil of free men, makes me declare that we proclaim our provincial independence, for which our work for liberty and the triumph we obtained yesterday, over these miserable slaves of absolute power. Comrades! We who are the 1st Brigade of the Liberal Army, must be the first to proclaim, as we proclaim, the independence of this province, which is disconnected from the rest of the Empire, and forms a free and independent state, with the title of Riograndense Republic, and whose manifesto to the civilized nations will be done competently. Comrades! Let’s shout for the first time: Long live the Riograndense Republic! Long live our independence! Long live the Republican Army of Rio Grande!

Bento Gonçalves, the leader of the rebellion that became known as the Guerre des Farrapos or the Ragamuffin war, did not begin the war as a radical republican, favoring the centralist monarchy and only wanting some pro-regional reforms. But he was still acclaimed as President of the republic by the revolutionary assembly and by 1838 even he had come around

to full independence for what was then called the Riograndense Republic. Never having full control of the entire state, the Ragamuffins with the help of Garibaldi and his Italian legion engaged in a long term guerilla war with the Brazilian state, having to evacuate to new capitals multiple times. Along with liberal republican ideals, the Ragamuffins opposed slavery, and a great deal, perhaps as many as half of the army of the Republic were made up of freed slaves. Freed from the overwhelmingly pro-monarchist ranches and plantations of South Brazil. By 1839 the rebellion had spread north to the State of Santa Carina and the so-called Juliana Republic was proclaimed and joined the Riograndese in a confederation. Sadly this sister republic didn’t last a year, and the Imperials pushed the rebel forces back. 

After 1840, the Ragamuffins were on the backfoot, and never regained the upper hand. Garibaldi left his republican allies in 1841, crossing the River Plate to help Uruguay defend its independence from Brazil, a cause supported by the Riograndese. Without any decisive defeat, the republicans finally accepted a generous surrender treaty with amnesty and an extension of some local autonomy. Garibaldi, for his part, would return to Europe in 1848 before the Uruguayan Civil War was concluded. Thus ends the history of the Riograndense Republic.

But the cause never truly died, and when many confederate soldiers fled the United States in the 1860s they found a home among the lost causers of South America. Indeed, President Jimmy Carter’s great uncle-in law was buried in a historic “Confederado” community. Here is a wonderful picture of the liberal then-Governor of Georgia paying respect to him during a state visit. And liberal decentralist ideals led men to take up arms again during the Federalist revolution from 1893-5, led by Rio Grande do Sul against fears the newly formed First Brazilian Republic would adopt a severe centralizing policy, ultimately being unsuccessful. A modern, peaceful secessionist movement was formed in 1992 called O Sul É o Meu País or “the South is my country”. Their main form of activism is organizing unofficial plebiscites on the question of secession for the 3 southern states, although they only get single digit percent participation there is a definite core of secessionism in this region. Currently Brazil is headed towards an extremely polarizing acrimonious presidential election, with large regional, religious and ethnic splits as to who should be president. If Bolsonaro, the favored choice of the South, should lose, and socialist Cuba sympathizer Lula da Silva wins, interest in separatism will undoubtedly increase in the region. If the alternative to secession is a bloody civil war between the two factions, supporters of peace must favor secession even if the case for self-determination WASN’T so historically rooted and philosophically sound. Long live South Brazil and may 1000 flowers bloom!