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D. Pedro I; Pedro I
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Son of King João VI and Queen Carlota Joaquina, and heir to the Bragança dynasty, Pedro only very briefly wore the two crowns of King of Portugal and Emperor of Brazil, whose independence he had declared on September 7, 1822, on the margins of the Ipiranga creek near São Paolo, on learning that the Portuguese Côrtes, a constitutional assembly gathered after the expulsion of the French invaders in 1809, had opposed Brazil's status as a kingdom alongside those of Portugal and the Algarves, and ordered him to return to Lisbon "to complete his political education". Surrounded by enlightened liberal ministers, foremost among whom was José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, author of the first draft for a constitution. Pedro's initial popularity in Brazil waned when, refusing to ratify the document, in 1823 he dissolved the Assambléia Geral. José Bonifácio, although having sided with the more conservative faction, was forced into exile until 1829. In 1824, however, D. Pedro once again turned towards the liberal faction and accepted another liberal constitution drafted by the Council of State.
Independence, nevertheless, endorsed neither structural nor institutional innovation. Pedro's regime soon stumbled into its next crisis after the financially disastrous military campaign against Argentina in 1825, eventually resolved by the independence of Uruguay (the former "Banda Oriental" or "Província Cisplatina", depending on Argentinean or Brazilian nomenclature), and Pedro's own continuing involvement in Portuguese affairs of monarchical succession. A series of local uprisings and clashes with the Senate and members of the nobility over unpopular cabinet appointments finally forced Pedro into abdication, upon which he sailed to Portugal in 1831, leaving behind his five-year-old son Pedro II.
Pedro I had become titular king of Portugal on the death of his father in March 1826; however, two months later and while still in Brazil, he had issued a parliamentary charter for Portugal and conditionally abdicated the Portuguese crown in favour of his daughter Maria da Glória. He died in Lisbon while defending his daughter's claim to the crown against that of his brother, the regent Miguel, a fight that would result in one of his few political successes when Maria da Glória was eventually crowned as Maria II.
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