Page:The Forgotten in the Independence Process.pdf/18

 Lucia Maria Bastos Pereira das Neves The forgotten in the independence process: a history to be made

Almanack, Guarulhos, n. 25, ef00220, 2020 http://doi.org/10.1590/2236-463325ef00220 In this sense, under various names - Creoles, browns, blacks, Africans - slaves and freedmen became important figures in the process of separation, whether in their own performance in the struggle for independence in the provinces, such as Bahia and Maranhão, as a threatening force, that is, a new representation of the Haitian revolt, which the Portuguese used to avoid the final outcome of the separation between the two peoples who were once brothers.

If there are anonymous people, other sources may reveal original actors and processes in Independence. The printed pamphlets, as well as the periodicals that sprout from the relative freedom of the press in 1821, also bring out figures that had a significant participation in that conjuncture. Such circumstantial writings conveyed political events to a wider audience in an unprecedented way, allowing a public discussion of this whole process and bringing to light characters little commented between the years 1821 and 1822. Although many being anonymous or written from pseudonyms, it is possible to identify some of its authors inserting them in a network of sociability and identifying their participation in the process of entering the Brazilian Empire in modern politics, when they split up with the mother country.

An unknown instigating figure in historiography was José Anastácio Falcão, Portuguese born probably in 1786. He was the author of pamphlets, periodicals and manuscripts between the time of the French invasions and the rise of D. Miguel to the Portuguese throne

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