The Empire of Brazil was the largest country in South America. It shared a border with every country on the continent except for Chile. It was bordered by the Guianas and Venezuela to the north, by Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia to the east, and by Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay to the southeast. Though the country was large, it was sparsely inhabited, and its heart was formed by the vast, wast rainforests of the Amazon basin.
Brazil declared its independence from Portugal in 1822, when Pedro I, son of the Portuguese king and regent of Brazil, defeated his father's army and was acclaimed emperor of the new state. For the next sixty years the Empire was a model of order in Latin America, known for its political stability, prosperity, and high level of development. However, the abolition of slavery in 1888 turned the powerful landowning class against the imperial government; compounding the issue was the fact that Pedro's only surviving child, Isabel, was a woman, and the landowners refused to support a female monarch. As a result, in spite of Pedro's popularity the Empire was overthrown in a military coup after his death in 1889 and the country sank into a long series of military dictatorships marked by constant political and economic crises.
Canon characters[]
Canon appearances[]
"The Problem of Thor Bridge"[]
Neil Gibson met his wife, Maria Pinto, while prospecting for gold in the Amazon region. Maria was the daughter of a government official stationed in the regional capital, Manaos.
"The Adventure of the Three Gables"[]
Isadora Klein was from an old and prominent family of the Pernambuco region in western Brazil. Nonetheless, she is described as being "pure Spanish", of the "real blood of the masterful Conquistadors".