20d • Portuguese History
👑 Born This Day: Dom Miguel I & The War That Tore Portugal Apart ⚔️October 26, 1802 🎂.
In Queluz Palace, Lisbon, Dom Miguel I enters the world. But this prince's birth comes at the worst possible time in Portuguese history.
🌊 The Royal Escape: Napoleon Changes Everything
Just five years later, in November 1807, Napoleon's army storms toward Lisbon 🇫🇷⚡. Miguel's father, Prince Regent João, makes a shocking decision: abandon Europe entirely. On November 29, 1807, the entire Portuguese court (nearly 10,000 people) boards ships and flees to Brazil 🚢.
When French soldiers arrive in Lisbon on December 1, they find an empty palace and a poor, abandoned kingdom. For the first time in history, a European monarchy rules its empire from a colony across the Atlantic 🌎.
💔 A Family Divided
Young Miguel grows up in Rio de Janeiro, his mother's favorite. Queen Carlota Joaquina (cold, devious, fiercely absolutist) dotes on Miguel while despising his liberal older brother Pedro. This toxic family dynamic will destroy Portugal.
When João VI finally returns to Portugal in 1821, he leaves Pedro behind as Emperor of Brazil. João dies in 1826, and the succession crisis explodes 💥:Pedro IV (the liberal) inherits the crown but abdicates for his 7 year old daughter Maria II, granting Portugal a constitutional charter 📜.
Dom Miguel (the absolutist) claims Pedro forfeited his rights by ruling Brazil and warring against Portugal ⚔️
.⚔️ The War of Two Brothers (1828 to 1834)
Miguel returns to Portugal in 1828 as regent for little Maria II. Instead, he seizes the throne 👑 and proclaims himself absolute king on July 11, 1828.
Blood immediately flows:Liberal forces in Porto revolt on May 16 or 18, 1828.Thousands of liberals are arrested, exiled, or killed.
Pedro abandons his Brazilian throne in 1831 and returns to fight for his daughter 💪.The war rages for six brutal years. In 1832, Pedro invades at Porto. From 1832 to 1833, Porto endures a year long siege (bombardment, starvation, plague) 🔥💀. In July 1833, liberals capture Lisbon. On May 26, 1834, Miguel surrenders at Évora Monte and goes into permanent exile.
🏴☠️ A War Zone Born
Portugal lies devastated. Thousands dead, economy shattered, society torn between absolutists and liberals. In the rugged Beiras mountains, the war has been especially savage (villages burned, families divided, old scores unsettled).
It's in this bloody chaos that legends are born. While nobles fight in Porto and Lisbon, rural guerrilla fighters prowl the highlands. The Liberal Wars created a generation of hardened warriors who knew only violence and survival.
When March 1, 1825 arrives in the village of Midões, Tábua, deep in the Beiras, a boy is born. His name: João Brandão.
Born into the heart of war, raised in mountains torn by conflict between Miguel's absolutists and liberal forces, this child will grow up watching his homeland burn. The very chaos that Miguel's seizure of power created will forge João Brandão into the legendary "Terror of the Beiras" 🗡️⚡—a guerrilla fighter, a symbol of resistance, a man who will become the living embodiment of the Liberal Wars' struggle in the mountains.
Miguel's throne. Miguel's war. João's destiny. 🇵🇹💔
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👑 Born This Day: Dom Miguel I & The War That Tore Portugal Apart ⚔️October 26, 1802 🎂.
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