FIGURE 4. Praça da Constituição (Constitution Square)
A “Dove without Gall” and the Court of Public Opinion
OVER THE COURSE of 1833, rumors of the possible return of Emperor Pedro I, who had left for Europe after his abdication on April 7, 1831, began reverberating through the streets of Rio de Janeiro. In 1832, a political faction had been formed in that city with the chief aim of calling for the return of the former ruler whose current title was the Duke of Bragança. They were called the Restorationists or Caramurus.1 The other two factions active in the city at the time were the Exaltados (Impassioned ones), also known as the Farroupilhas (Ragamuffins), and the Moderates, or Chimangos.2 As we will see, Moderates and Exaltados had joined forces in Campo da Honra (Field of Honor) plaza, staging the Seventh of April rebellion which forced Pedro to abdicate the throne in favor of his son, who was then a minor. However, as the Moderates gained power, the alliance between those two political identities fell apart.3 As a result, broadly speaking, while the Caramurus wanted Pedro I to return, the Exaltados were radical liberals who opposed the centralizing project of the Moderates who, in turn, were aligned with the aspirations of the large landowners and merchants of the provinces of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and São Paulo.4
Just when rumors of the former emperor’s return reached a deafening pitch, the Moderates began instrumentalizing the byname Caramuru. At least, so said some newspapers and satirical publications like O meia-cara, which observed on November 11, 1833, that “the idea of imminent restoration has given free rein to the Chimangal gang to engage in all sorts of despotism.”5 Evaristo backed up that charge by reporting that “the name of Restorationist is given to all those who disagree with the dominant faction [the Moderates] and, through this means, indiscriminately insults honorable Citizens who, dragged off to horrible dungeons, have their hands tied.”6 Indeed, the situation truly began to worsen, both for the Restorationists and the supposed Restorationists, in early December 1833, especially in the evening of the second of that month, Pedro II’s eighth birthday.
That night, the Military Society, which, according to the newspaper A verdade, “gathered in its bosom all individuals, whether or not they were in the military, who were disgruntled with the Government, and preferably the most brazen Restorationists,”7 decided to display an illuminated mural that, instead of an effigy of the child-emperor, showed a general who bore a strong resemblance to Pedro I. Some reports state that a justice of the peace was called in, and that, after inspecting the inopportune tribute to the former emperor, he had had the image removed. However, some reports stated that the “indignant populace threw stones at the illumination and the mural, removed it, and stamped on that picture.”8 There were also disturbances at the Theater, where government supporters clashed with backers of José Bonifácio, Pedro II’s guardian, whom the Moderates accused of being the Restorationist-in-Chief, allegedly orchestrating a thousand conspiracies from the imperial residence to bring about Pedro I’s return.9
Three days later, in the afternoon of December 5, over a thousand people gathered outside the Military Society’s headquarters in Largo de São Francisco de Paula. It was said that that organization, viewed as a bastion of Caramurus, would be holding an assembly that day. The furious crowd stoned the building and smashed the plaque bearing the society’s name. A smaller group is said to have entered the building and ransacked it, tossing furniture and papers into the street. The crowd only left the scene when a justice of the peace appeared.10 However, not satisfied with the destruction of the Military Society’s headquarters, some of them headed for the printers’ workshops that produced periodicals and pamphlets linked to the Restorationists.
Reports of the incident do not make it clear whether the group first attacked David da Fonseca Pinto’s Paraguassú Press before going on to Nicolau Lobo Vianna’s Diário Press (Tipografia do Diário), or if they split up and destroyed both workshops at once.11 In any case, an account by Nicolau Lobo Vianna published a few days later in Diário do Rio de Janeiro gives a very clear idea of the afternoon’s events:
doors and windows [were] smashed in, and all the presses, furnishings, and other printing equipment were destroyed; all the printed matter, notices published and awaiting publication, was destroyed, everything scattered in the street, our establishment (through which with immense effort we eke out a living for our large family) was reduced to nothing, or a heap of rubble, and the losses we have suffered are considerable.12
The situation was probably very similar at David da Fonseca Pinto’s establishment—presses and printed matter destroyed, type scattered in the street, everything reduced to “a heap of rubble.” It so happens that the crowd’s bloodlust, or rather lust for Caramuru presses and pamphlets, was not sated by ransacking the Paraguassú and Diário. There was a third workshop to be demolished in Rio de Janeiro, and the horde—which it certainly was from the printers’ perspective—headed for Praça da Constituição (Constitution Square).
At about seven p.m., a group “armed with sticks” arrived at Brito and Company’s Fluminense Press (Tipografia Fluminense de Brito e Companhia). Shouting “Paula Brito restaurador” (“Paula Brito, restorationist”), they threatened to break in and give it the same treatment meted out to the other two presses. Francisco de Paula Brito must have been overcome with panic. After all, the results of two years of hard work were about to be destroyed. And they would have been, but for the intervention of the justice of the peace of Santíssimo Sacramento parish, José Inácio Coimbra, who ordered the crowd to disperse and assigned a National Guard patrol to guard the printer’s door.13
The following day, still profoundly shaken, Paula Brito wrote and printed his Proclamação aos compatriotas (Proclamation to the compatriots), a one-page document in which he aimed to give a “sincere account” of his “political faith.” In it, he refuted accusations that he belonged to the Restorationist faction, declaring himself to be a “true Exaltado.” He was a “Brazilian who took up arms among you on the glorious 7 of April [of happy memory], and, enlisted in the national ranks, I protested, defending the Nation, Constitution and Nationality with my life.” According to his Proclamation, the confusion had arisen from a “small pamphlet”—perhaps a Caramuru newspaper called A mineira no Rio de Janeiro, as we will see in Chapter 5—in which Paula Brito, proclaiming himself a “FREE PRINTER” in capital letters, stated that he belonged to “no party whatsoever.”14
Meanwhile, the Moderate press celebrated the “lively conduct of the people of Rio de Janeiro on the second, fifth and sixth of December, in which they made the Restorationists disappear.”15 In its Notices section, Sete d’Abril mocked the ravaged printers’ workshops, observing, for example, that “we really miss the Escaped Slaves Daily: now two have just escaped who are even captains. If anyone finds the two maroons, please have them delivered to their master, who is in Lisbon.”16 Ransacked on December 5, the Diário do Rio de Janeiro, a newspaper that mainly contained advertisements, including escaped slave announcements, was not published between December 6 and 11, and came out in a smaller format between the twelfth and seventeenth. Therefore, the joke can be interpreted as follows: the “escaped slaves” mentioned in Sete d’Abril must have been Nicolau Lobo Vianna and David da Fonseca Pinto, and their Lisbonite “master,” Pedro I.
Francisco de Paula Brito did not escape the editor of Sete d’Abril’s caustic comments. On December 21, a note in that newspaper’s Notices read as follows: “It is false that Mr. Paula Brito owes money and obligations to Ripanso and his Brother; it is also false that he is currently occupied with slandering and disparaging them.”17 The style of that section of the Moderate newspaper aimed to amuse its readers through sarcasm. Therefore, the editor meant to say the exact opposite: that Paula Brito did, in fact, owe money and favors to Ripanso and his brother, and had ungratefully slandered and disparaged them. Before learning who Ripanso was, let us take a look at another notice mocking Paula Brito, published in Sete d’Abril on January 1, 1834: “It is entirely false that the papers found on Rua da Ajuda, following the destruction of the Diário Press, included the originals of the most infamous notices published in the Manteiga signed by the Patriot Mr. Paula Brito. This gentleman is a dove without gall, and not a Restorationist at all.”18
Once again, and through the same sarcasm, the reader was meant to understand the exact opposite. Far from being a “dove without gall,” it meant that Paula Brito was as much a Restorationist as the “small amount of printed matter” that his workshop produced, and more than that, he was the author of the notices published in the Manteiga (Butter), as the Diário do Rio de Janeiro was called, which had been found amid the wreckage of Nicolau Lobo Vianna’s press. The insult from Sete d’Abril left a deep impression; so much so that, two years later, Paula Brito referred to it in verses he published in Mulher do Simplício (Simplício’s [the simpleton’s] wife):
And so that you know
That I am speaking true,
Just as a certain writer said,
“I am a dove without gall.”19
However, as early as January 1834, Paula Brito, who wrote that he was “already tired of hearing [what] is being said about me after the events of December 5, 1833,” once again took up his pen and strips of paper and launched a broadside against the editor of Sete d’Abril. It was a lengthy reply that, when printed, took up seven of the eight pages of the January 21 edition of the Carioca: Jornal político, amigo da liberdade e da lei (Political newspaper, friend of liberty, and the law). Paulo Brito had printed that newspaper at the Fluminense Press since August of the previous year, which may explain why it was not hard to negotiate that many pages with the publication’s editor.
The article had two objectives. First, Paula Brito wanted to make it clear to his readers that he did not owe any money at all to Ripanso and his brother and that he was not the author of the notices published in the Diário. Ripanso, as Paula Brito explained, was what “the newspapers of the former opposition” called the poet, journalist, politician, and bookseller Evaristo da Veiga. Thus, after refuting Sete d’Abril’s first accusation, he structured the remainder of the first part of the article around an account of his life story, from his childhood to the time of writing. However, although there are some elements of an autobiographical account,20 the second objective of the article is more of a defense in which the printer, acting as his own advocate, sought to redeem himself before the court that had condemned him. In his words, Paula Brito wanted “to present my defense to the Court of Public Opinion, which it will judge as the supreme Jury.” Acquittal by the Court of Public Opinion was essential, because despite his passion, reaffirmed in nearly every sentence of the article, Paula Brito did not hide his desire to restore his “credit.” Although he wanted “the good of the Nation,” he was not interested in “being anything more than a printer.”
The events of December 5, 1833, indicate that public opinion, which was in full bloom in the city,21 also ruled Rio de Janeiro’s printing activities with an iron fist. The tension is interesting to see, because before or despite describing himself as a member of a political faction, Francisco de Paula Brito refused to give up the prerogatives of a “free printer.” However, there is no doubt that the Restorationist pamphlet that caused him so much grief was unsigned, and Paula Brito tried in vain to exempt himself from responsibility for the content of the publications that came off his presses.
This situation led to two basic problems for nineteenth-century journalism in Brazil: the institutionalization of anonymity and, therefore, the question of attributing legal responsibility for anonymous publications. As we will see, the crowd that almost ransacked Paula Brito’s press was acting very much like the judiciary and enforcers of the laws enacted and revised since the reign of King João VI to keep strict control of what was published, and consequently read, in this country. While authors were shielded by anonymity, the printers could be readily identified and, in effect, had to redeem themselves before official and unofficial tribunals, such as the court of public opinion. But looking into this matter more deeply, we should first learn how Francisco de Paula Brito, a young pardo (brown, mixed-race) man, the son and grandson of freed slaves, joined the ranks of those printers.