Manuel Marques de Sousa, Count of Porto Alegre
Manuel Marques de Sousa, Count of Porto Alegre, nicknamed "the Gloved Centaur", was an army officer, politician and abolitionist of the Empire of Brazil. Born into a wealthy family of military background, Manuel Marques de Sousa joined the Portuguese Army in Brazil in 1817 when he was little more than a child. His military initiation occurred in the conquest of the Banda Oriental, which was annexed and became the southernmost Brazilian province of Cisplatina in 1821. For most of the 1820s, he was embroiled in the Brazilian effort to keep Cisplatina as part of its territory: first during the struggle for Brazilian independence and then in the Cisplatine War. It would ultimately prove a futile attempt, as Cisplatina successfully separated from Brazil to become the independent nation of Uruguay in 1828.
Rio de Janeiro, capital of the Empire of Brazil, with the City Palace at the center
Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande do Sul province, seven years after the end of the Ragamuffin War
The countryside of the province of Rio Grande do Sul
Marques de Sousa (on horseback pointing his finger) leading the Brazilian 1st division during the Battle of Caseros
The Empire of Brazil was a 19th-century state that broadly comprised the territories which form modern Brazil and Uruguay until the latter achieved independence in 1828. Its government was a representative parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the rule of Emperors Pedro I and his son Pedro II. A colony of the Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil became the seat of the Portuguese Empire in 1808, when the Portuguese Prince regent, later King Dom John VI, fled from Napoleon's invasion of Portugal and established himself and his government in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. John VI later returned to Portugal, leaving his eldest son and heir-apparent, Pedro, to rule the Kingdom of Brazil as regent. On 7 September 1822, Pedro declared the independence of Brazil and, after waging a successful war against his father's kingdom, was acclaimed on 12 October as Pedro I, the first Emperor of Brazil. The new country was huge, sparsely populated, and ethnically diverse.
A locomotive in Bahia province (Brazilian northeast), c. 1859
Brazilian artillery in position during the Paraguayan War, 1866
Emperor Pedro II surrounded by prominent politicians and national figures c. 1875
Belém, a medium-sized city and capital of Pará province (Brazilian north), 1889