Book Review - Empire Adrift by Patrick Wilcken

I love reading history books, and it can be fascinating to occasionally pick up something on a topic I know almost nothing about. This is one of those books.

The exile of the Portuguese court to Brazil during the Napoleonic Wars is something I'd seen mentioned in most books covering the Pensinsular War. But it's always mentioned as a minor thing and glossed over. This book looks at it in more detail, and really helps if you want to understand a bit more about the histories of both Portugal and Brazil and why they are how they are today.

So to summarise what happened; in 1807, the French sent an army to occupy Portugal and force compliance with Napoleon's "Continental System", a blockade intended to prevent British trade with Europe. Portugal was virtually defenceless, caught up in the interplay between two great powers and with a Royal court split over whether it was better to be aligned with England or France.

Although it's alliance with Britain was one of the oldest in the world, dating back to 1386, it's clear from reading the book that Britain was ruthless in ensuring it worked to their advantage. Portugal had a huge overseas Empire, with Brazil as one of the jewels in it's crown. But Brazil was neglected in many ways, seen as just a supplier of resources and a market for finished products. The English wanted access to those markets, as well as wanting to end the slave trade which kept the Brazilian economy afloat.

The book looks at the state of the Portuguese court just prior to the exile, the actual (and chaotic) process of transporting the whole court with many of it's archived records to Brazil, then the events in Brazil with the consequences on both the court and the country. Finally, it looks at how events developed, the impact on an abandoned Portugal, and the eventual return of the court several years after the Napoleonic Wars had ended.

It is fair to say that the Prince Regent of Portugal, Dom Joao, doesn't come out looking very good ! He seems to have been a fundamentally nice man, but not very intelligent, terrible at actually making decisions, complacent in the extreme and very poor at observing what was going on around him. He was also cursed by being married to Dona Carlota, a Spanish princess who was an inveterate schemer and was more than happy to plot against her own husband.

Despite the actual arrival of the court in Brazil being poorly planned (or maybe not planned at all), the Brazilian people seem to have taken the Braganza royal family into their hearts. Things were far from perfect, but it transformed Brazil from a neglected colonial backwater into a cultural and political centre. The court tried to mimic their European existence, but it seems that what actually happened was to create a wonderful fusion of cultures as well as enabling Brazil to become more of a diversified economy.

But the effect on Portugal was the opposite. It was impossible to rule two countries separated by the Atlantic Ocean, so Portugal became effectively the European colony of a South American-based empire. The Portuguese didn't like that at all, and it led to a series of uprisings which eventually forced Dom Joao (now King) to return with the court.

Brazil itself also faced problems. The Bolivarian wars of independence during which Spain's colonies fought for independence inspired nationalists in Brazil who sought at the very least a form of monarchy which wasn't modelled on the absolutist states of the 18th Century, and in some cases a fully republican government. Poor old Joao was blind to all this, and there were a number of revolts in Brazil although all were put down.

When the Braganza's returned to Portugal, Dom Pedro, the eldest son of Dom Joao, stayed in Brazil. He led Brazil to independence and declared himself it's first emperor. While Brazil still had a turbulent subsequent history, I feel that having been treated as a European country rather than just a colony for this period helped it to develop a unique identity and not suffer quite the levels of instability of many of Spain's former colonies.

This book is that rarest of things, a well researched and sourced history book that is also a real page-turner. It takes a topic which could be rendered as a dry list of events and extracts from letters, and brings it to life.

One thing I like is that the author manages to show sympathy to a selection of people who could easily be drawn as incompetent or malicious. Dom Joao comes over as nice but dim, stuck in a previous century but not at all a bad person, and clearly loved by the ordinary people of both Portugal and Brazil. Even Dona Carlota is shown to have reasons why she acted as she did, which renders her more than just a caricature.

Possibly the most interesting people are Dom Pedro, who is seen to transform from a complete teenage wastrel into an inspirational leader (although still something of a serial philanderer !) and his wife, Maria Leopoldina, daughter of Francis I of Austria and the sister of Empress Marie Louise (Napoleon's second wife). She's a tragic figure, who travelled to Brazil never to see Europe again, but she was also the mother of the second emperor of Brazil, also called Pedro. She did good work promoting the development of natural sciences in Brazil which had up until then been sorely neglected.

The only character who comes out of the book in an utterly unsympathetic light is Lord Strangford, the British ambassador. He is quite rightly shown as the unscrupulous man he was, quite happy to take credit for others' work and without a shred of ethical backbone if he could advance the desires of both Britain and his own self-interest.

All in all, I highly recommend this book. It tells a complex and incredibly detailed story in an accessible and even-handed way. It doesn't gloss over the evils of slavery, but does put them into context. Even more importantly, it shows respect for all involved, both countries and people. It would be far too easy to fall into the traps of anti-colonial dogma or paternalism, and the author successfully avoids both deftly.

Published in 2004 by Bloomsbury Publishing. 306 pages with 17 plates. ISBN 0-7475-6869-3

Photo is by me, of my own copy of the book