João Soares Lisboa's critical fortune in nineteenth-century historical studies

Abstract

This article discusses the obliteration of João Soares Lisboa’s public career by historical literature as a part of the creation of a history of Brazilian independence and the dictates of disciplinary memory. The editor of Correio do Rio de Janeiro played an important role in independence and was the only person convicted of “republican collusion” by the bonifácia, the first political devassa [inquiry to investigate criminal acts] in the newly independent Brazil. Narratives of newspapers that were contemporary to the bonifácia (1822) and to the Processo dos cidadãos [citizens’ inquiry] (1824), a publication in which former devassa defendants proclaimed themselves innocent, gained historiographical repercussion through authors, such as Mello Moraes, Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen and Otávio Tarquínio de Sousa. Reckoned to have acted in the background of the liberals’ group led by Joaquim Gonçalves Ledo, Soares Lisboa at times was regarded a radical, republican and victim of Minister José Bonifácio de Andrada’s despotism, and at times a political agitator and insolent. His public career therefore became reference to qualify attitudes and projects of other main players during this period, especially Minister Andrada.