Balaiada Rebellion in Brazil 1838-1841

On December 13, 1838, in Vila da Manga, a town in the Brazilian province of Maranhão, Raimundo Gomes Vieira Jutaí broke his brother out of prison. The prison guards, disgruntled with their lot, did not oppose Gomes. Instead, the guards released the 22 other prisoners and joined him in revolt against the provincial government. Gomes also gained the support of the likes of Manoel Francisco dos Anjos Ferreira, nicknamed o Balaio (the wicker basket -- a reference to his being a vendor of wicker baskets, which was later applied to the rebels in general), among others in the lower classes. The rebel cause also gained the support of Cosme Bento, leading an armed force of about 3000 runaway slaves. The rebellion spread throughout the province of Maranhão and spilled over into parts of the adjacent provinces of Piauí and Ceará. However, the balaios lacked any definite purpose to their rebellion, other than generally protesting the appalling social conditions in the province.

Nonetheless, on October 1, 1839, a force of about 2000 rebels managed to capture the city of Caxias, the second largest population center in the province. Liberal elements of the middle class in Caxias took part in the uprising. Caxias then became the headquarters of a rebel provisional government which included representatives of the urban middle class. The rebels sent a delegation to the provincial capital of São Luís with proposals to end the uprising. The provincial government declined to negotiate and requested imperial aid from Rio De Janeiro. Meanwhile liberal support for the rebellion, in Caxias, disappeared because of the dominance of the lower classes in the leadership of the rebellion.

At the beginning of 1840, the conservative Brazilian regency designated Colonel Luís Alves de Lima e Silva (the future Duque de Caxias) to be the new president of Maranhão and tasked him with containing the rebellion. Alves reorganized the imperial forces in Maranhão and proceeded to attack the rebels with a force of about 8000 troops. Francisco, one of leaders of the uprising, was killed in combat; Caxias was recaptured. Imperial forces then pursued the rebels relentlessly. In May 1840, a rebel force under the leadership of Gomes was defeated in battle, losing some 500 men. Several months later, Dom Pedro II, the new emperor of Brazil, offered the rebels an amnesty. More than 2000 (possibly 2500) balaios surrendered. The rebellion nominally came to an end on January 15, 1841, when Gomes surrendered in Vila de Miritiba, near the border of Piauí; he died on his way to exile in São Paulo. Cosme Bento continued to resist and conducted raids of estates in the interior of the province; he was captured later and hung in September 1842. About 12,000 persons, primarily lower-class people, Indians, free and runaway blacks and slaves, died in combat and massacres.

References

Brazil - A Country Study; História do Brasil: Revoltas na Regência; A Revolta dos Balaios Maranhão; História do Maranhão; Eciclopédia Brasileira - História - História do Brasil - Balaiada; A Balaida no Maranhão 1838-1840; A Balaiada; A Memória Popular em Dezembro.

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