Pedro IV of Portugal
One of the most important historical figures in Portugal is Pedro IV of Portugal (Pedro I of Brazil). Dom Pedro I, also known as "the Liberator," was the founder and first emperor of the Brazilian Empire (12 October 1798 – 24 September 1834). He briefly ruled Portugal as King Dom Pedro IV, earning the nicknames "the Liberator" and "the Soldier King" there. Pedro I, a member of the House of Braganza and the fourth child of King Dom John VI of Portugal and Queen Carlota Joaquina, was born in Lisbon. He and his family escaped to Brazil, Portugal's biggest and richest territory when French forces invaded the nation in 1807.
Pedro I's father was forced to leave Brazil in April 1821 after the Liberal Revolution of 1820 in Lisbon broke out, leaving Pedro I to lead Brazil as regent. He had to cope with opposition from revolutionaries as well as Portuguese troops' disobedience, both of which he conquered. Brazil was widely unsatisfied when the Portuguese government threatened to revoke the political independence it had enjoyed since 1808. On September 7, 1822, Pedro I sided with Brazil and proclaimed that country's independence from Portugal. On October 12, he was proclaimed Emperor of Brazil, and by March 1824, he had vanquished all soldiers loyal to Portugal. Pedro I crushed the short-lived Confederation of the Equator, a failed secession effort by provincial rebels in Brazil's northeast, a few months later.
Pedro I temporarily reigned as King of Portugal in March 1826 before abdicating in favor of his eldest daughter, Dona Maria II. The situation deteriorated in 1828 when Brazil lost Cisplatina as a result of the conflict in the south. During the same year, in Lisbon, Prince Dom Miguel, Pedro I's younger brother, stole Maria II's reign. Other challenges developed in the Brazilian parliament, where from 1826 to 1831, political arguments were dominated by a dispute over whether the government would be appointed by the monarch or the assembly. Unable to deal with crises in both Brazil and Portugal at the same time, Pedro I abdicated in favor of his son Dom Pedro II on April 7, 1831, and departed for Europe.
In July 1832, Pedro I led an army invasion of Portugal. Faced with what appeared to be a national civil war at first, he soon became entangled in a larger conflict that engulfed the Iberian Peninsula in a struggle between supporters of liberalism and those desiring a restoration to absolute monarchy. Pedro I died of TB on September 24, 1834, only a few months after he and the liberals had triumphed. He was praised as a major individual who helped promote the liberal ideals that allowed Brazil and Portugal to transition from absolutist regimes to representative forms of governance by both contemporaries and posterity.
