"MASS OF THE TRANSATLANTIC BRAZILIANS": the reinsertion of the businessman Antonio José Meirelles in the Maranhão after the Independence (1825-1831)

Abstract

Abstract: Maranhão can be considered one of the faces of the heterogeneity of Brazil's process of political separation, since there was a strong confrontation within the regional elite, which remained Lusitanian, regional and tied to Lisbon until the eve of the "adhesion" towards independency. After the province's "adhesion" and the new political reordering, distrust of the "Portuguese" grew in the region. In this context, the main representative of the so-called "Portuguese" in Maranhão was the businessman Antonio José Meirelles, who managed to preserve his privileges in the region, even though he remained against the province's "adhesion" of independence. The present article analyzes Meirelles' strategies for the resumption of his political power in the region and his ways of relating to the central power, as well as the quarrels involving the merchant in the context of Maranhão recently inserted in the Empire of Brazil, between 1825 and 1831.

Keywords: Maranhão. Antonio José Meirelles. Independence.