Background
José Bonifácio de Andrada was born in Santos, Brazil, June 13, 1765. He was a son of a Portuguese father and a Paulista mother.
José Bonifácio de Andrada was born in Santos, Brazil, June 13, 1765. He was a son of a Portuguese father and a Paulista mother.
Bonifacio was educated at the University of Coimbra, in Portugal, and from 1790 to 1800, commissioned by the Portuguese government, made a scientific expedition through Europe, during which he discovered a number of unknown minerals in Sweden and gained prominence among the scientists of the period.
After returning to Portugal, where he remained until 1819, Bonifacio returned to Brazil, soon becoming the controlling mind in the movement for independence there. Appointed one of the ministers of Prince Dom Pedro, he helped make Brazil's evolution quite different from that of the neighboring Spanish nations. He advised Dom Pedro and prevailed upon him to remain in Brazil, organized the Junta of São Paulo, called for deputies from the various provinces, and persuaded the prince to accept the Grand Mastership of a masonic lodge pledged to creating a monarchy rather than a republic. Part of his program was established in 1822, when Brazil became a free limited monarchy, and many of his ideas were embodied in the constitution of 1824, drawn up during the period he was exiled abroad because of his liberal principles. His last great public service was the tutorship of young Dom Pedro II, which began in 1831. The liberal training he gave this brilliant prince was a chief reason for the latter's long enlightened rule from 1840 to 1889. Bonifacio died at Rio de Janeiro in 1838.
Of all the South American national "fathers, " Bonifacio was the only one who sought to solve the major problems of his country in a peaceful and bloodless manner. He advised the adoption of a limited constitutional monarchy as the best bridge from colonial subjection to republican freedom.
He supported public education, was an abolitionist and suggested that a new national capital be created in Brazil's underdeveloped interior (effected over a century later as Brasília).
His career as naturalist was marked by the discovery of four new minerals.
