José Bonifácio was born in Santos in 1763 and graduated in law and natural philosophy at the University of Coimbra, in Portugal. In 1790, he took on a mission in mineralogy sponsored by the Portuguese government, in which he had to travel through several European countries.
Ten years later, when he returned to Portugal, he expected recognition and high positions. But nothing done! Bonifácio would only achieve prominence even in Brazil. In 1819, at the age of 56, José Bonifácio returned to São Paulo, where he began to gain influence and power.
The following year, a revolution broke out in Porto, back in Portugal. The Portuguese absolutist government collapsed and the general courts began to rule the kingdom.
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Dom João VI, who had been in Brazil since 1808, was forced by the courts to return to Lisbon. Upon leaving Rio de Janeiro, he left his son Dom Pedro as Prince Regent.
But the courts were not satisfied: they tried to limit Dom Pedro’s power and demanded the return of the heir to the throne to Lisbon.
José Bonifácio, who by that time had already become a powerful politician in São Paulo, reaching the position of president of the Governor’s Board of the Province, was one of the people who advised Dom Pedro to stay in Brazil and declare separation from Portugal, in 1822. .
Despite having managed to achieve the pompous title of “the Patriarch of Independence”, the break with Portugal was an achievement of several advisers, not an individual achievement of Bonifácio.
Later, a major setback. Faced with a troubled political situation, Dom Pedro turned his back on his great ally, who then left for exile in France.
But the world took a few more turns and he was called to return to Brazil to take on one of the most important missions for the Brazilian empire: to tutor Dom Pedro’s son, the future Dom Pedro II.
