[Pernambuco] | First printed work in favor of Brazilian Independence

[Pernambuco]

Preciso dos sucessos, que tiverão lugar em Pernambuco, desde a faustissima egloriozissima Revolução operada felismente na Praça do Recife, aos seis do corrente Mez de Março. [Pernambuco: Officina Typographica da Segunda Restauração de Pernambuco], 10 March 1817

Folio, broadside (230 x 310 mm). Four lines of heading, text in single column, on papel selado with tax stamp of "10 reis" at foot of verso, deckle-edges preserved; paper fold causes very slight printing defect, minor stains, slight soiling.

Exceedingly rare, with no record of copies in auction records for at least 100 years.

The broadside was printed to inform the public of events from 5–10 March 1817, known as the Pernambucan Revolution. Authorship has been attributed to either José Luis de Mendonça or Antonio Carlos Ribeiro de Andrada, who cited the revolt’s cause to the proscriptions of 5 March and called for the overthrow of the Portuguese colonial rule and the establishment of a provisional government. The law of the new provisional republic included religious tolerance and equal rights, but defended slavery. As a precursor of Brazilian independence, the revolt first broke out in Pernambuco and spread to Alagoas, Paraíba, and Rio Grande do Norte. 

Holmes notes, "This paper, today, is a true and most valuable relic of the first organized attempt to proclaim the independence of Brazil. It was drafted by an able lawyer, who paid for it with his life."

Ricardo Fernandes Castanho, a Recife businessman, was granted a license to print in Pernambuco in 1816 and imported a press from England, soon after Silva Serva began printing in Bahia. Having failed to purchase adequate type and no available paper, the first broadside was printed on papel selado with the stamp at the foot of the leaf rather than the head and with types manufactured by an Englishman, James Finches. This broadside was one of a number of others issued by the “Officina Typographica da Segunda Restauração de Pernambuco” before their license was revoked with the suppression of the revolt in May of 1817.

“Viva a Patria,/ Vivao os PATRIOTAS, e acabe para sempre a tirania real. (Long live the fatherland, long live the patriots, and may royal tyranny end forever).”

Only one copy located.

REFERENCES

Borba de Moraes, Livros e bibliotecas no Brasil colonial pp. 162–4; Museum de Arte de São Paulo, Historia da tipografia no Brasil pp. 12, 163; Holmes, Rarest Books in the Oliveira Lima Collection 175 (describing their copy as "the only copy known"); not in JCB, NUC, Porbase, Mevyl or Jisc