Who was John VI of Portugal?

A regent in Napoleon’s way

John VI, Dom João VI in Portuguese, was not born to be king. His elder brother José was the heir until he died in 1788. When their mother, Queen Maria I, was kept from government by mental illness, João ruled Portugal in her place as prince regent. In 1785 he had married Carlota Joaquina, daughter of the future King Carlos IV of Spain. The bride was 10 years old.

In November 1807 Napoleon, master of most of Europe, demanded that Portugal close its ports to the British, its oldest ally. Portugal stalled, and a French army under General Junot marched on Lisbon. João chose the ocean. On November 29 the fleet left the Tagus under Royal Navy escort, carrying the queen, the royal family and the court. Junot entered Lisbon the next day. Tradition says 10,000 to 15,000 people sailed; the documents count far fewer, and estimates run from a few thousand to 15,000.

A European capital in the tropics

After 54 days at sea the prince’s ship reached Salvador, in Bahia. There, on January 28, 1808, he signed the royal letter opening Brazil’s ports to friendly nations, ending three centuries in which the colony’s trade had to pass through Lisbon. In practice, that meant British ships. On March 8 the court landed in Rio de Janeiro, which became the capital of an empire spread over four continents. João gave it institutions it had never had:

• a royal press and the first newspaper printed in Brazil, the Gazeta do Rio de Janeiro;
• the Banco do Brasil;
• the garden that became Rio’s Botanical Garden;
• the Royal Library, some 60,000 volumes shipped from Lisbon in crates in 1810 and 1811.

None of this changed one fact: almost half of Rio’s people were enslaved. From 1811, hundreds of thousands of Africans brought by the slave trade were landed at the city’s Valongo wharf.

King in Rio

When Napoleon fell, Lisbon expected its regent back. He stayed, and raised Brazil’s status instead:

That from the publication of this Law the State of Brazil be raised to the dignity, pre-eminence and title of Kingdom of Brazil.

On paper, Brazil was no longer a colony but a kingdom joined to Portugal and the Algarves. Maria I died in 1816, and João was acclaimed king in Rio on February 6, 1818. The year before, Pernambuco had proclaimed a republic that lasted about 75 days; its leaders were executed.

Going home, and an honorary emperor

In 1820 a liberal revolution in Porto demanded a constitution and the king’s return. João sailed on April 26, 1821, with Carlota Joaquina, who had never liked Rio, and left his son Pedro behind as regent. According to a letter by Pedro himself, his father advised him that if Brazil had to break away, it should be under Pedro rather than some adventurer; the exact words vary from version to version. Within eighteen months the son did just that, as How did Brazil become independent from Portugal? tells.

Was João VI ever emperor of Brazil? Only on paper. In the 1825 treaty by which Portugal recognized Brazil’s independence, he kept the honorary title of Emperor of Brazil. He died in Lisbon the following year, and his crown passed to the son he had left behind: see Who was Pedro I of Brazil?.

Popular memory, helped by the 1995 Brazilian film Carlota Joaquina, Princesa do Brazil, keeps a timid, gluttonous king. Many historians, starting with Oliveira Lima in 1908, see a cautious ruler who, by crossing the ocean, kept the crown Napoleon took from so many others.