Author: Alida Metcalf
This Narrative describes Rio de Janeiro a few months before Prince Dom Pedro declared the independence of Brazil. Descriptions of the city, its landscape, and the political events as recorded by Maria Graham in her journal, are mapped. The complete travel account was published in London in 1824 as Journal of a Voyage to Brazil, and Residence There, During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823.
Alida C. Metcalf is Professor of History at Rice University, Houston, USA
Born in 1785, Maria Dundas was the daughter of a Scottish naval officer and an Anglo-American mother. At twenty three, she traveled with her father and sister to India, and on the voyage out, she met Thomas Graham, whom she later married. She also became a writer, authoring Journal of a Residence in India, which was published in 1812, followed by Letters from India (1814), and Three Months Passed in the Mountains East of Rome, during the Year 1819 (1820). Other books soon followed: a translation, a history of Spain, a biography of the painter Nicolas Poussin.
The British portrait painter and art historian, Charles Eastlake, sketched Maria Graham, whom he had met in Rome in 1819. His portrait shows a earnest woman with a keen eye. Two years later, in 1821, Thomas Graham, Maria's husband, received command of the ship H .M. S. Doris and was ordered to South America to protect British interests. Already successful as a writer, Maria Dundas Graham intended to accompany him and to keep a journal of her travels to South America. They arrived in Rio in 1821.
At about six o'clock in the evening of the 31st of July, 1821, after having saluted His Majesty, Geroge IV . . . we sailed in the Doris, a 42-gun frigate for South America.
So begins Maria Graham's journal of her voyage to Brazil and Chile. Her husband, Thomas Graham, captained His Majesty's Ship [HMS] Doris, and was ordered to Chile by way of Brazil. It was the time of the wars of independence in Latin America, and England had a vested interest in the ensuring that the former colonies of Spain secured their independence, which would open up their makets to English trade. England was however neutral regarding the independence of Brazil, given its close ties to Portugal. The Doris would make several stops in Brazil, the first was Pernambuco on September 22nd, 1821.
Maria Graham first saw Rio through the eyes of a visitor. As with many previous visitors, she was struck by the beauty of the Guanabara Bay and its surrounding landscape. She wrote:
"Nothing that I have ever seen in comparable in beauty to this bay. Naples, the Firth of Forth, Bombay harbour, and Trincomalee, each of which I thought perfect in their beauty, all must yield to this, which surpasses each in its different way. Lofty mountains, rocks of clustered columns, luxuriant wood, bright flowery islands, green banks, all mixed with white buildings; each little eminence crowned with ts church or fort; ships at anchor or in motion; and innumerable boats flitting about in such a delicious climate,--combine to render Rio de Janeiro the most enchanting scene that imagination can conceive."
The arrival of the Doris followed that of all ships calling at Rio. As Maria writes,
"We anchored first close to a small island, called Villegagnon, about two miles from the entrance to the harbour. . . . We moved from this station to one more commodious nearer the town, and higher up the harbour, towards the afternoon, which soon became so rainy, that I gave up all hopes of getting ashore."
Henry Chamberlain, son of the British Consul General, was in Rio right before their arrival, and sketched this view of the city of Rio. According to Chamberlain, "by the Regulations of the Port, all Merchant Ships entering the Harbour are to come to anchor, or lay too, off this Fort [Villegagnon], until visited by the proper Government Boats, when they are permitted to proceed up to the common Anchorage; if they attempt to pass without attending to this Regulation, they are fired at and compelled to pay for each shot."
The Grahams rented a house in Catete, a neighborhood to the south of the city center, where Maria set up "house-keeping on shore" and tended to the sick midshipmen.[1] She found the vegetables and poultry very good but not cheap; the fruit very good and cheap, and the beef cheap but very bad. The best meat was pork "very good and fine" because "it is fed principally on mandioc and maize." Fish was not plentiful, but "extremely good; oysters, prawns, and crabs are as good as in any part of the world." The wheat used to bake bread in Rio was "generally speaking, exceedingly good" and was imported from the United States. Some flour came from wheat fields planted in São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and provinces in southern Brazil. The most important food in Rio, Maria Graham soon realized, was manioc:
"The great article of food here is the mandioc meal, or farinha; it is made into thin broad cakes as a delicacy, but the usual mode of eating it is dry: when at the tables of the rich, it is used with every dish of which they eat, as we take bread; with the poor, it has every form--porridge, brose,[2] bread; and no meal is complete without it: next to mandioc, the feijoam or dry kidney bean, dressed in every possibly way, but most frequently stewed with a small bit of pork, garlic, salt, and pimento, is the favourite food; and for dainties, from the noble to the slave, sweetmeats of every description, from the most delicate preserves and candies to the coarsest preparations of treacle, are swallowed wholesale."
On December 19th, Maria Graham rode with a midshipman recuperating at their Catete house to Larangeiras, named for the orange trees growing there. Later she went back to sketch a particular scene along the road, at the site of a fountain that is known today as the Bica da Rainha. This is her sketch, as engraved and published in Journal of a Voyage to Brazil. Visible in the view is the Larangeiras Road, the Carioca River, the Bica da Rainha fountain, and a granite faced hill (today Mirante Santa Marta). The Corcovado is in the far distance.
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[1] Midshipman: "A non-commissioned naval officer ranking immediately below the most junior commissioned officer (i.e. in the Royal Navy, next below a sub lieutenant)" OED Online. January 2022. Oxford University Press).
[2] Brose: "A dish made by pouring boiling water (or milk) on oatmeal (or oat-cake) seasoned with salt and butter" (OED Online. December 2021. Oxford University Press).
Maria made several visits from their house tn Caete to the city center. On her first trip, which fell on Monday, Decenber 31st, she described the route:
"Our road lay through the suburb of the Catete for about half a mile. Some handsome houses are situated on either hand, and the spaces between are filled with shops, and small houses inhabited by the families of the shopkeepers in town. We then came to the hill called the Gloria, from the name of the church dedicated to N. S. da Gloria, on the eminence immediately overlooking the sea. The hill is green, and wooded and studded with countryhouses. It is nearly insulated; and the road passes between it and another still higher, just where a most copious stream issues from an aqueduct (built, I think, by the Conde de Lavradio), and brings health and refreshment to this part of the town from the neighbouring mountains."
Later she made a sketch, shown here as engraved for publication in Journal of a Voyage to Brazil, from a vantage point just below Gloria Church, and the view looks out at the city from the Gloria Hill. The waterfront of Gloria is visible on the left, the aqueduct with its arches connecting the Morro de Santa Teresa to the Morro de Santo Antonio can be seen. Past Gloria, the shoreline curves towards the city, and the public park known as the Passeio Publico is visible. The white twin pillars mark its entrance. Just next to it is the Convento da Ajuda.
Like any tourist, Maria wanted to see the sights of the city. The central square of Rio, known as the Largo do Paço, (Palace Square) faced the bay. Maria described the Carmeline Monastery, the Royal Library, the palace, and the surrounding square:
"The church and convent of the Carmelites, which forms part of the palace, and within which is the royal library of 70,000 volumes,[1] where on all days, except holidays, the public are admitted to study from nine till o o'clock in the forenoon, and from four o'clock till sunset. This part of the palace occupies one side of a handsome square: the palace itself fills up another; a third has private houses, built uniformly with the palace, besides the fish-market; and the fourth is open to the sea. The water-edge is faced with a handsome granite pier and steps, the blocks of which are bolted with copper. In the centre of the pier there is a fountain, supplied from the aqueduct of Albuquerque,[2] and altogether the appearance of the palace square is extremely handsome."
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[1] The royal library was brought to Brazil from Lisbon, and it formed the core of today's Biblioteca Nacional, Brasil.
[2] Here Maria refers to a ViceRoy, several of whom had the name Albuquerque. The aqueduct was finished in the eighteenth century, and its iconic feature--the double-arched water bridge arcade--was completed in 1750 by Gomes Freire de Andrade, then governor of Rio.
As an published writer, Maria described what she thought would be of interest to her readers. Those readers likely knew European cities, but not Rio. In describing Rio's streets and houses, she compared some of them to Rome:
"The city of Rio is more like an European city than either Bahia or Pernambuco; the houses are three or four stories high, with projecting roofs, and tolerably handsome. The streets are narrow, few being wider than that of the Corso [1] at Rome, to which one or two bear a resemblance in their general air, and especially on days of festivals, when the windows and balconies are decorated with crimson, yellow, or green damask hangings."
Thomas Ender, an artist with the Austrian Scientific Mission, painted many watercolors of street scenes in Rio in 1817, such as this one, which he titled St. Antonio. However, according to scholars, it is actually Rua Piolho.[2] This street ran right below the Morro de Santo Antonio (St. Anthony Hill), see map. At the upper right of Ender's watercolor the Morro de Santo Antônio is visible as well as the church of the Ordem Terceira de São Francisco da Penitência. In the far distance, the Morro do Castelo can just be made out.
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[1]The Via del Corso is a famous street in central Rome.
[2] Robert Wagner, Júlio Bandeira, and Thomas Ender,
Viagem ao Brasil nas aquarelas de Thomas Ender: 1817-1818
(Petrópolis: Kapa Editorial, 2000), 247.
Maria described "two very handsome squares" one newly renamed Constitution Square, in honor of the new constitution written for Portugal and Brazil:
One, formerly the Roça,[1] is now that of the Constituição, to which the theatre, some handsome barracks and fine houses, behind which the hills and mountains tower up on two sides, give a very noble appearance.
Jean Baptiste Debret, a French artist living in Rio, described this square as "one of the oldest in Rio de Janeiro" and a "beautiful locale."[2] The Real THeatro de São João (Royal Theatre of St. John) was a major cultural center for the elite.
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[1] Here Maria Graham means rossio.
[2] Jean Baptiste Debret, Voyage pittoresque et historique au Brésil, ou, Séjour d'un artiste français au Brésil (Paris: 1834-1839), 3e Partie Pl. 45.
The other city square, the Campo de Santana (St. Anne's Field), Maria Graham described as "exceedingly extensive,[1] but still unfinished." She writes,
"Two of the principal streets run across it, from the sea-side to the extremity of the new town, nearly a league, and new and wide streets are stretching out in every direction. But I was too tired with going about in the heat of the day to do more than take a cursory view of these things, and could not even persuade myself to look at the new fountain which is supplied by a new aqueduct."
This new aqueduct was the Maracanã Aqueduct, which supplemented Rio's first aqueduct, known as the Carioca.
A few years after Maria Graham's visit, French landscape designer Auguste Henri Victor Grandjean de Montigny submitted this plan to beautify the Campo de Santana. As Maria Graham notes above, a "new town" (Cidade Nova) was being built on the other side of the "unfinished" square. Part of the plan was to transform the open grounds into a proper square that would link the older center of the city with the new construction.
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[1] In a note, Maria Graham writes that it is 1,713 feet square.
Maria describes a third square in the city known as the Largo da Carioca (Carioca Square), named for the city's largest and oldest fountain. Completed in 1723, this fountain received its waters from the Carioca Aqueduct, which brought fresh, clean water from the hills above the city. Although Rio's water was exceptionally good for the time, it depended on enslaved people, who worked as watercarriers. As Maria writes, the square was filled with enslaved men and women working at filling their water jugs, watering animals, or washing clothes. In the square men and women were openly sold as slaves.
"The largest [fountain] is the Carioca,[1] near the convent of Sant Antonio; it has twelve mouths, and is most picturesque in itself: it is constantly surrounded by slaves, with their water-barrels, and by animals drinking. Just beyond are troughs of granite, where a crowd of washerwomen are constantly employed; and over against these, benches are placed, on which there are constantly seated new negroes for sale."
The view of the Carioca fountain shown above was painted by William Smyth, an officer in the British Navy, who arrived in Rio in 1831, on the ship "Samarang".
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[1] In a note, Maria Graham writes that "the nickname of the inhabitants of Rio is Carioca, from this fountain." The fountain was named for the source of its waters, which came from the headwaters of the Carioca River, which flowed through from the base of the Corcovado Peak through Larangeiras and emptied into the bay.
The most beautiful fountain in Rio, according to many visitors, was the Chafariz das Marrecas (Duck Fountain). Deisgned by the Brazilian artist known as Mestre Valentim, it was completed in 1785. Maria Graham offers only a brief observation:
"The fountain of the Marecas is opposite to the public gardens, and near the new barracks; and, besides the spouts for water for the inhabitants, there are two troughs always full for the animals."
Only one illustration of this fountain survives, and it was painted by Arnaud Julien Pallière, who lived near the fountain. Pallière arrived in Rio in 1817 in the retinue of the Empress Leopoldina, and later married the daughter of the architect Grandjean de Montigny, who created the plan for the Campo de Santana, discussed above.
Maria Graham noticed and reported on the presence of enslaved people throughout the city of Rio. Her first encounter with slavery occurred in Pernambuco, before arriving in Rio. This encounter reveals that she was an Abolitionist:
"We had hardly gone fifty paces into Recife, when we were absolutely sickened by the first sight of a slave-market. It was the first time either the boys [the midshipmen] or I had been in a slave-country; and, however strong and poignant the feelings may be at home, when imagination pictures slavery, they are nothing compared to the staggering sight of a slave-market. It was thinly stocked, owng to the circumstances of the town; which cause most of the owners of new slaves to keep them closely shut up in the depôts. Yet about fifty young creatures, boys and girls, with all the appearance of disease and famine consequent upon scanty food and long confinement in unwholesome places, were sitting and lying about among the filthiest animals in the streets. The sight sent us home to the ship with the heart-ache and resolution, "not loud but deep," that nothing in our power should be considered too little, or too great, that can tend to abolish or to alleviate slavery."
When she was in Rio, however, Maria became accustomed to slavery, and even described the enslaved (except those encountered in the slave trade) as "cheerful and happy:" She writes,
"There is in the city an air of bustle and activity quite agreeable to our European eyes; yet the Portuguese all take their siesta after dinner. The negroes, whether free blacks or slaves, look cheerful and happy at their labour. There is such a demand for them, that they find full employment, and of course good pay, and remind one here as little as possible of their sad condition, unless, indeed, one passes the street of the Vallongo; then the slave-trade comes in all its horrors before one's eyes. On either hand are magazines [warehouses] of new slaves called here Pieces; and there the wretched creatures are subject to all the miseries of a new negro's life, scanty diet, brutal examination, and the lash."
Maria Graham did not choose to visit the slave market of Rio, known as the Valongo, until 1823. An image of the Valongo appears as the first illustration in her book. It is not from her hand, but rather from a watercolor by Augustus Earle, who was in Rio in 1820. Whether she, or her publisher, chose to place the image in such a prominent place remains unknown.
Maria Graham supported the work of the slave trade commission, which sought to enforce the laws against slave trading. She became friends with the commissioner of this office in Rio. On Friday, December 21st, Mr. Hayne who was the head of the slave trade commission in Rio, and his sister, invited Maria on an outing to see the Botanical Gardens.
At daybreak, they set out for Botafogo, which Maria described as "perhaps the most beautiful spot in the neighborhood of Rio, rich as it is in natural beauty," and from Botafogo, they made their way to the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon, which Maria described as:
"nearly circular, and about five miles in circumference; it is surrounded by mountains and forests, except where a short sandy bar affords an occasional outlet to the sea, when the lake [i.e., lagoon] rises so high as to threaten inconvenience to the surrounding plantations."
Karl Friedrich Philipp von Von Martius made a similar outing a few years before in 1817 and sketched the lagoon, with the Pedra da Gávea in the background.
On the way back, they ascended to the parish of Nossa Senhora da Cabeça. The scenery was stunning, and Maria Graham sketched it (although the sketch does not appear in her book). She particularly noticed a stream (the Rio da Cabeça):
"About a stone's throw behind the chapel, a clear rivulet runs rapidly down the mountain, leaping from rock to rock, in a thousand little cascades, and forming, here and there, delightful baths."
Maria Graham also noticed the coffee plantations, including some tended by the slaves of the priest of the parish, that extended up the slopes of the mountain. She noted that
"the coffee plantations are the only cultivated grounds hereabouts; and they are so thickly set with orange trees, lemons, and other tall shrubs . . . the vegetation is so luxuriant, that even the pruned and frafted tree springs up like the native of the forest."
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Maria Graham visited Rio during a momentous political time, not only for Brazil, but for all of Latin America. Most of the former colonies of Spain and Portugal had declared, but not yet secured, their independence from Spain. In 1821 and 1822, Brazil would achieve its independence, and Maria described her understanding of the conflicts between Brazil and Portugal, as well as the sites where important events took place in Rio.
Brazil had an unusual path that differed from those of Argentina, Chile, Peru, Gran Colombia, or Mexico. Even though all movements for independence in these colonies of Spain were sparked by Napoleon's invasion of Iberia in 1807 and 1808, Brazil was unique, for the entire Portuguese court fled Lisbon for Brazil.
In the view of the Palace Square (Largo do Paço) above, Henry Chamberlain depicts the palace with the royal carriage in front. The image dates from 1818, right before Maria Graham arrived. He included the following text about the changes brought about with the arrival of the court in 1808, which transformed the former residence of the viceroy into the royal palace:
"Considerable alterations and additions were made to fit it [the palace] for the accomodation of the Royal Family, after their arrival in 1808. A Convent and the common Gaol were emptied of their inhabitants; Corridors thrown over two Streets to connect them with the Palace; and Nobles, Courtiers, and Maids of Honour, took the places of Monks and Criminals."
By the time Maria Graham arrived in Rio in December 1821, the city had been shaped by a thirteen-year presence of the royal court. In 1815, after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, when one might have expected the court to be packing their bags for Lisbon, the Prince Regent elevated Brazil to the status of co-kingdom with Portugal. Then when Queen Maria died in 1816, again one might have expected the new king to return to Portugal to be crowned in the traditional ceremony.
But in fact the ceremony, known as the "Acclamation" took place in in Rio de Janeiro. Jean Baptiste Debret, a French artist in Rio de Janeiro, created a detailed view of the acclamation the new king-- Dom João VI. He also captured the moment in text:
"the Prime Minister has finished the reading of the wishes formulated by the provinces of Brazil, which call the Prince Regent of Portugal to the throne of the new united kingdom.
The king has responded: I accept, and the general enthusiasm of the spectators is expressed by the exclamation, “Viva el rei nosso senhor” [Long live the king our lord] and the Portuguese gesture of waving a handkerchief in one’s hand.
The royal flag is unfurled. The king is seated in full royal dress with a hat on his head and the scepter in his hand, while the crown rests on a cushion next to him.["1]
At the king's right right are the princes Dom Pedro and Dom Miguel. Above and to the right, Debret writes that
"the queen occupies the place closest to the throne, and successively after her, the princess Leopoldina, her head adorned with white feathers while the other princesses have red; Dona Maria-Thereza, called La Jeune Neuve; Dona Maria-Isabel, Dona Maria-Francisca; Dona Isabel-Maria, and finally Dona Maria-Beneditta, widow of Prince Dom José and aunt of the king."
[1] Debret's note: "We know that since the death of King Dom Sebastião who disappeared in a battle fought in Africa in the year 1518 [sic] against the Moors who remained masters of the field, one does not crown the king anymore, because as the Portuguese say, the King Dom Sebastião, saved by God, must return and wear again the crown of Portugal."
Following the ceremony inside the catherdral, the new king, Dom João VI, then presented himself to the public for their acclamation. It was two years since the death of the Queen. The reason for the delay, according to Debret, was the distance separating Brazil and Portugal:
"the new king had to obtain the ratification of the Portuguese regency that he had established in Lisbon; and, also, to get the assent from the great powers of Europe."
Debret presents a view of this public event, as well as a description:
"I now reproduce the exterior of this same gallery, which ornamented the entire rear of the plaza facing the sea. The moment that I have chosen is . . . his appearance on the balcony in the middle of the building to show himself to the people and receive from them the first tribute of homage before descending to the royal chapel, where he must attend the Te Deum that concludes the acclamation ceremony."
According to Debret, the new king was not completely confident of his reception by the people of Brazil. Soldiers were present to maintain order:
"The commanding officer of the plaza and two officers of his headquarters maintain an open space around the balcony. And the infantry foot soldiers and the cavalry are spread out, interspersed among the general masses and workers that fill the space.
And, it should be said, these military measures did contribute not a little to reassure the new king, who constantly dreaded the explosion of some popular uprising arising from the discontent of the Portuguese, jealous of his extended stay in Brazil despite the promise that he had made to them: that he would return to Lisbon as soon as the general peace had been established."
The new king seemed very happy to rule from Rio, and he showed no signs of desiring to return to Portugal. Resentments grew across the Atlantic in Lisbon where the country lay ravaged by the war against Napoleon and the administration of its affairs left largely to the British. The political currents swirling through the Atlantic World affected Portugal, too. A revolution broke out in Porto, Portugal that established a Provisional Junta. This junta called for the immediate return of the king and for an assembly to meet that would write a Constitution.
On one of her first walks through downtown Rio, Maria Graham visited a prominent square, formerly known as the Roça [Rossio] that had been recently renamed as Praça da Constituição [Constitution Square]. This new name commemorated the local enactment of the accpetance of the Constitution to be written by the Cortés. This event took place ten months before she arrived--on 26 February 1821. Jean Baptiste Debret, who was in Rio at that time, drew the scene and described the event which took place
"the next morning around 9 o’clock, the young prince Dom Pedro arrives . . . accompanied by a few people: he goes upstairs and appears on the terrace of the front of the royal theater; there, joined by the president of the Municipal Council and a few other authorities, he swears publicly by the Holy Gospel to obey the Portuguese constitution 'such as it will be sanctioned by the Cortès of Lisbon.'"
In Debret's image the balcony of the royal theatre from which Dom Pedro made the announcement appears at the back center left. Debret provides a detailed description of the square, its major monument, buildings, homes, and the streets that leave it. By joining Debret's description to a historical map of the city in imagineRio (on right) we can visualize the spaces where these political events took place.
"That which one remarks on at first glance in the plaza do Rocio [Rossio]—one of the oldest in Rio de Janeiro—is the granite column capped by a celestial sphere made of gold-colored copper, on top of which are added two small iron brackets that cannot be mistaken for gallows; it is a symbol of the power of the high justice exercised by the city government."
In his view, water carriers and street vendors can be seen around the column. Behind it and slightly to the left is the theatre with its balcony resting on top of large arches, and its distinctive triangular pdiment. Debret noted that
"the Court’s theater, whose façade is its most beautiful feature: they say this façade resembles that of the royal theater of Saint Carlos [Teatro São Carlos] in Lisbon"
Debret took pains to describe two streets that exited from the square, which cannot be easily seen in his view. However, they are clearly visible on the historical map (on right).
"At the back of the drawing, the entrances to two streets can be seen; these streets stretch the entire length of the original city, all the way to the sea (that is to say, to the Palace). The street to the left is that of Cano, known for its very able shoemakers of shoes for women, and the street on the right is that of Piolhio [Piolho] that changes names near the plaza of the Carioc [Largo da Carioca] and becomes the street Cadea [Cadeia], "
After a brief digression on the fighting that took place on the Cadeia Street when French pirates invaded Rio in the early eighteenth century, Debret returns to the square and points out the house of the Prime Minister, José Bonifacio
"the beautiful terraced home next to the theater. This same terraced home owes its most recent fame to being the residence of the Prime Minister, José Bonifacio, who stayed there throughout the time when he held the portfolio, which is since the founding of the empire [i.e., in 1822]. "
Finally Debret returns to the political event that led to the renaming of the square, and reinforces that the place where Prince Dom Pedro appeared on the balcony was the theatre
"in fact the theater balcony is no less celebrated for having the honor of becoming, for a few minutes, the royal grandstand where dom Pedro, as the reigning prince, came in his father’s name to give the long-awaited oath to obey the liberal constitution that was to come from the Cortes of Lisbon, and that would govern all Portuguese possessions in the two hemispheres."[2]
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[1] The other square was the Campo de Santana, which Maria Graham described as "exceedingly extensive, but unfinished."
[2] Jean Baptiste Debret, Voyage pittoresque et historique au Brésil, ou, Séjour d'un artiste français au Brésil (Paris: 1834-1839), 3e Partie Pl. 45.