The Aqueduct in Rio de Janeiro

Title

The Aqueduct in Rio de Janeiro

Description

View of an aqueduct and the city of Rio de Janeiro.

dated 1812

Artist

Cook

Historical Description

The city of Rio de Janeiro proper was founded by the Portuguese 1565 and was named São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, in honour of St. Sebastian, the saint who was the namesake and patron of the Portuguese then-monarch Sebastião. Rio de Janeiro was the name of Guanabara Bay. Until early in the 18th century, the city was threatened or invaded by several mostly French pirates and buccaneers, such as Jean-François Duclerc and René Duguay-Trouin. When founded in 1565, the city was initially the seat of the Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro, a domain of the Portuguese Empire. Rio de Janeiro became the chosen seat of the court of Queen Maria I of Portugal, who subsequently, in 1815, under the leadership of her son, the Prince Regent, and future King João VI of Portugal, raised Brazil to the dignity of a kingdom, within the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarves. When Brazil was elevated to Kingdom in 1815, it became the capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves until the return of the Portuguese Royal Family to Lisbon in 1821, but remained as capital of the Kingdom of Brazil. From the colonial period until the first independent decades, Rio de Janeiro was a city of slaves. When Prince Pedro proclaimed the independence of Brazil in 1822, he decided to keep Rio de Janeiro as the capital of his new empire while the province was enriched with sugar cane agriculture in the Campos region and, especially, with the new coffee cultivation in the Paraíba Valley. In order to separate the province from the capital of the Empire, the city was converted, in the year of 1834, in Neutral Municipality, passing the province of Rio de Janeiro to have Niterói as capital. Rio continued as the capital of Brazil after 1889, when the monarchy was replaced by a republic.