INCONFIDENCIA

Inconfidencia Mineira

Revolutionary plot

The political movement of the Inconfidencia Mineira was a revolutionary plot involving magistrates, priests, poets, farmers, soldiers, townspeople and even authorities of the dominant power in the eighteenth century (1788-1789), dreaming of liberation of colonial Brazil from the portuguese domination.

Inspiration

It was largely inspired on the independence of the thirteen british colonies in North America, which occurred shortly before (the Declaration of Independence of the United States in 1776 and the Constitution in 1783), and on the Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Smith, Locke and other exponents.

Many of the young elite of Vila Rica used to study in Europe, in Coimbra, Montpelier and other centers of excellence, being inspired and influenced by these renovating ideas.

Thomas Jefferson and the conspiracy

One of these brazilian students, José Maia, using the pseudonym Vendek, managed to exchange correspondence and star, in 1787, a bold and historic secret meeting with Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Ambassador in France and one of the founding fathers of the recent north american nation. He sought support from the young american democracy to the dawning revolutionary movement in his brazilian homeland, gaining Jefferson´s sympathy for the revolution.

Jefferson wrote in French to Maia and the meeting took place in April 1787 in the french city of Nimes. On May 4, in a letter to Secretary of State John Jay, Thomas Jefferson reported the meeting with the brazilian. The Jefferson´s letters are found in American libraries.

Globalized ideals

The libertarian ferment of the era was also increasing in France, culminating in the French Revolution with the fall of the Bastille, the symbol of royal absolutism, in 1789, the same year of the heyday of the plot of the conspirators in Vila Rica.

Freedom postponed

The conspirators are betrayed and the desired revolt does not take place, but the ideals of the conspiracy does not disappear.

The Inconfidencia Mineira Minas Conspiracy, with Vila Rica as the center of the plot, was the main episode of the colonial era, precursor of independence finally achieved 33 years later, in 1822, when Brazil became independent of Portugal.

Tiradentes

Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, Tiradentes, main leader of the revolutionary plot, was declared a national hero and is the civic patron of the brazilian nation. He is celebrated every year on April 21 in Ouro Preto, with the symbolic transfer of Minas Gerais government to the former Vila Rica of the revolutionary inconfidentes. The place of his residence in Vila Rica is now the seat of the Chamber of Commerce, which also houses the Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Hotel Association.

The remains of the conspirators rest in the Pantheon of the Conspirators, in the Museu da Inconfidencia.

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