Declaration of Independence

From the Portuguese Colony of Brazil

God has given the gift of leadership to Your Majesty. However, the leadership that we are enslaved under is something we pray Your Majesty does not support. The people that have the control have made our lives unbearable. Your Majesty, please understand our plea as we request of you our independence. Our grievances are many and only increase in number as the years drag on. The people that you appointed have limited to power are abusing the authority they have been given. Your Majesty, please understand us when we say that we seek not to separate ourselves from you, but from the abuse we suffer at the hands of the government. This abuse can only be rid of when we separate ourselves from the government, and by extent from you. To support our claim of abuse, please read our grievances below. At the hands of the Brazilian government put in place by Your Majesty the King our people have suffered the following injuries. The African slaves have worked for all hours of the day during the growing seasons, and are not even allowed breaks during the winter season when the growing season is over. Our women have been forced into prostitution by those in power and have been used by plantation owners for their own pleasure. The duties of the middle class, if there were one, falls to us, and we are not paid for the work that we do in the name of the crown. The Indians native to this region who love the land they have been grown up on have fled from their traditional homelands to escape the reach of the slave hunters. No matter how far they run, slave owners have still caught them and forced them into slavery, even though they were once an ally of Your Majesty. Those of us, bound in slavery die like dogs because of the workload and European diseases that we have no immunity to. Those of us who do not die from the horrific conditions listed above sometime take their own lives to escape this madness. Your Majesty, when the women claimed by the Portuguese become pregnant instead of bearing the child in gladness, sometimes kill their child to prevent them from coming into a world where all that awaits them is suffering. Your Majesty, we plead to God for the life that he has granted others, and we also plead to you with the power to end our suffering. We wish for our independence to free ourselves from the past and to enable ourselves to move forward into the future. Please assist us in this request.

From those who suffer in the Portuguese Colonies in Brazil

April 17th, 1756 A.D. Colonists of Portugal in Brazil Your Illustrious Sire, Your Majesty we write you in the worst conditions possible. Recently it has come to our attention that deceit and lies were sent to you by representatives of the slave and native populations. Your Majesty, we implore you to hear our case as we present the correct and unbiased side of the issue. In the months past, and the past reports that we have sent you, we may not have been as descriptive of the native population as we might need to be. Your Majesty, the slaves are a very detestable race and are to be blamed for any of the problems that we have run into. The native populous has caused us many problems in the past. Even with the fair treatment that we have given to them, we have had to turn to the more expensive slave trade of the blacks since 1550. Your Majesty may you count this against them in that they have taken away from honest subjects of the Homeland. In regards to their wild and unsupported claims of mistreatment, may we point to the Brazilian judicial system. Your Majesty, as you know in 1736 the Marinha e Ultramar, the Marine and Overseas Ministry, that you created framed and created the laws for this land. We have a governor set up by yourself to make sure that the laws are executed according to the letter of the law, and as you also know, also have relacoes, or high courts, from which even more sensitive cases are dealt with. Not only are their higher bodies, but there are also local bodies of justice. Inside of each town and city there is a government council made of the men from inside of the town. Your Majesty, we wish to inform you that any injustice that is occurring is happening at our expense. We have done everything that we could possible do to increase their prosperity and their happiness. We have helped the missionaries sent from the church to set up villages from where they can work and learn about God. We have helped to employ them in a land where they had no jobs or income before. Your Majesty, we have acted as citizens of Portugal should and extended to them the hand of friendship. But, alas, our good intentions were not returned. They have run off from their jobs, refused our assistance, and Your Majesty, they have

put their own souls in jeopardy by committing suicide for reasons that we have yet to comprehend. This is only a shortened list of the atrocities they have done against us. Please, do not take them seriously as they appeal to you for freedom, for Your Majesty; they do not deserve to govern themselves. Do not permit them to break away from the only people who wish to help them. To King Jose I, reformer and king, From your most humble servant, Viceroy Diogo da Silva e Medonca, Count of Salinas

Viceroy Diogo da Silva e Medonca, Count of Salinas