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Eichhorn, Niels
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Atlantic History in the Nineteenth Century.
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Article contents
“All Americans are hero-worshippers”: American Observations on the First U.S. Visit by a Reigning Monarch, 1876
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2010
Extract
When Dom Pedro II, emperor of Brazil, visited America in 1876, he planned to assess industrial and technological innovation on display at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and to pay visits to men whom he admired. Most Americans were fascinated by the emperor, even though his visit came at an awkward time. During the centennial of the Declaration of Independence, America was hosting an emperor—and from the last major slaveholding country. This article reviews newspaper accounts of the visit and analyzes the ambivalence displayed toward his visit. Americans were supposedly devoted to equality. Nonetheless, wherever he went during his three-month sojourn, the emperor was met by admiring crowds. One newspaper explained: “It is not the monarch so much as the novelty that attracts in this country.” This article views the visit not from Dom Pedro's impressions of America, but from American responses to the visit of a hereditary monarch—the first to travel around America during his reign. The paper concludes that centennial-year fascination with royalty generally overcame historic contempt for hereditary privilege and lack of interest in royal visitors. Such ambivalent attitudes toward visiting royalty continue into the present day.
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- The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 453 - 477
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- Copyright © Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 2008
References
1 Famous examples include Sir Burton, Richard F., who was less than complimentary about much that he saw in his The City of the Saints, and across the Rocky Mountains to California (New York, 1862)Google Scholar;Dilke, Charles Wentworth, Greater Britain: A Record of Travel in English-Speaking Countries During 1866-67 (New York, 1869)Google Scholar; and Simonin, Louis, Le grand-ouest des Etats-Unis (Paris, 1869)Google Scholar, translated and portions republished as , Simonin, The Rocky Mountain West in 1867 (Lincoln, NE, 1966)Google Scholar. One celebrated travel account by an American that was popular in Europe is Twain, Mark, Roughing It (Hartford, 1872)Google Scholar.
2 See, for instance,Wrobel, David M. and Long, Patrick T., eds., Seeing and Being Seen: Tourism in the American West (Lawrence, KS, 2001)Google Scholar. A classic on tourism in the U.S. West is Pomeroy, Earl S., In Search of the Golden West: The Tourist in Western America (1957; Lincoln, NE, 1990)Google Scholar.
3 Bryce, James, American Commonwealth, 2nd ed. rev. (London, 1891), 2:624–25Google Scholar.
4 Dom Pedro II ruled as a constitutional monarch. He became emperor at the age of five n i April 1831, following the abdication of his father, Dom Pedro I. Many members of the royal family had been in Brazil since 1808, when they were forced to flee Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars to Brazil, ostensibly ruling both countries from the New World colony. In 1822, Brazil gained independence from Portugal, and Dom Pedro I agreed to serve as constitutional monarch. Ongoing tensions between the ruler and the Chamber of Deputies forced his abdication in 1831 and departure for Portugal, with his daughter (sister of Dom Pedro II) who later became queen of Portugal. For a summary of political events leading up t o Dom Pedro II's rule and the early tumultuous years of his reign, see two chapters in Bethell, Leslie, ed., Cambridge History of Latin America, vol. 3 (New York, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: Bethell and Jose Murilo de Carvalho, “Brazil After Independence,” and Richard Graham, “Brazil from the Middle of the Nineteenth Century to the Paraguayan War.”
5 Edmund Morgan recently provided a reminder that the Declaration of Independence was not generally “anti-monarchical” but specifically opposed to the “present monarch of Great Britain.”Morgan, Edmund S., “Inventing the Liberal Republican Mind,” New York Review of books, Nov. 16, 2006Google Scholar.
6 The best biography of Dom Pedro II is Barman, Roderick J., Citizen Emperor: Pedro II and the Making of Brazil, 1825-91 (Stanford, 1999)Google Scholar. According to Barman, Pedro viewed himself as “agent for the spread of ‘civilization’ (European culture) in Brazil” (118).
7 , Barman, Citizen Emperor, 275–80Google Scholar, makes only brief references to the U.S. tour. The most complete narrative account of Dom Pedro's visit is Williams, Mary Wilhelmine, Dom Pedro the Magnanimous: Second Emperor of Brazil (Chapel Hill, 1937), ch. 10Google Scholar. Unfortunately, the Williams account makes many laudatory generalizations based on rather weak evidence. For instance: “He was probably the most popular foreigner that has ever been in the United States” (209). Much of her narrative derives from the extensive coverage of the trip done by the New York Herald. The paper's correspondent, James O'Kelley, joined the emperor on ship when he left Brazil. By the time the party went west, newspapers named O'Kelley as part of the emperor's entourage. Therefore, one may question whether O'Kelley's impressions were entirely unbiased. This article does not cite the Herald, except to the extent that other newspapers commented on its dispatches about Dom Pedro's trip. Among newspapers consulted for my study were dailies in Atlanta, New Orleans, New York, Chicago, and on the West Coast. These include the New York Evening Post, New York Times, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Constitution, San Francisco Chronicle, Pacific Appeal (San Francisco), Oregonian (Pordand), Washington Standard (Olympia), Cheyenne Daily Leader, Sidney (Neb.) Telegraph.
8 Louis Agassiz mentioned seeing the Brazilian exhibit for the Paris fair in 1865 when the “Amazonian products” were being brought together in Para, Brazil, in preparation for the event., Louis and Agassiz, Elizabeth, A journey in Brazil (1867Google Scholar; Boston, 1896), 510.
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30 Boston Evening Transcript, June 8, 1876, p. 1Google Scholar.
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32 The Oregonian (Portland), April 24, 1876, p. 1Google Scholar. The only mention of Dom Pedro made by a black-owned San Francisco newspaper noted that he was staying at the Palace Hotel while he visited the city;Pacific Appeal (San Francisco), April 22, 1876, p. 2Google Scholar.
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37 Quoted in New York Times, Apr. 19, 1876, p. 1Google Scholar. The petition, consisting of several letters to Congress, was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee. No action was taken on the request. See Congressional Record, 44th Cong., 1st Sess., Apr. 18, 1876, 2552Google Scholar.
38 New York Times, Apr. 19, 1876, p. 1Google Scholar. See also the Atlanta Constitution, Apr. 19, 1876, p. 2Google Scholar, for a similar report.
39 Fish's views on the issue are not noted in his biography, nor is there mention of Dom Pedro. See Nevins, Allan, Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration (New York, 1936)Google Scholar; Fish's problems with U.S. minister to Brazil J. Watson Webb are summarized on pp. 249, 642-46. Webb apparently embezzled monies appropriated to reimburse Brazil for a U.S. claim for the ship Caroline. The issue encompassed questions of bribery of foreign officials, secret bank accounts, and deception of Congress. Nevins asserts that Webb never returned to the United States and, in fact, probably died in Brazil. A one-line newspaper account from April 1876, however, indicates that he did return and faced trial on the charges in Washington, D.C. The jury could not agree on Webb's guilt or innocence. Presumably, the case was then dropped, which would account for the lack of an appeal or conviction record. Oddly, Dom Pedro was in the United States at the time of the trial. See Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Apr. 29, 1876, p. 123Google Scholar. The cover of the issue, coincidentally, was the full-page portrait of Dom Pedro.
40 San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 26, 1876, p. 4Google Scholar. An earlier issue of the same paper addressed the emperor's abolitionist views: “[To have Brazil] conform to the requirements of the most advanced nations, he proceeded with a practical plan for the final extinction of slavery with-in his empire.” Gradually, slavery was outlawed in Brazil, without resorting to civil war and with emancipation consistently supported by the emperor. For background on Dom Pedro's opposition to slavery and the slave trade, see , Bethell, Cambridge History of Latin America, 3:724–43Google Scholar.
41 “Brother Jonathan to Dom Pedro,” Atlanta Constitution, Apr. 27, 1876, p. 4Google Scholar. The author is not named.
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46 Atlanta Constitution, Apr. 20, 1876, p. 2Google Scholar, quoting from the New York Telegram. Probably politics, not naiveté, restrained newspaper references to Brazil's constant problems with official corruption. The Webb case, well publicized nationally, suggested that Brazilian officials had been bribed with the money Webb was accused of embezzling. See Nevins, Hamilton Fish.
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58 Ibid., May 23, 1876, p. 2.
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63 , Williams, Dom Pedro the Magnanimous, 201, 203Google Scholar, notes that Boston was his favorite city in America, while he was not favorably impressed with New Orleans or the rest of the South.
64 See, for instance,Boston Evening Transcript, Apr. 20, 1876, p. 1Google Scholar: “Coffee at Rio, 61.50 reis per ten kilos”;New York Times, Apr. 18, 1876, p. 4Google Scholar: “Rio coffee, 16 cents a pound for ordinary grade.” On the West Coast, Central American coffee was probably much more common than Brazilian coffee. See San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 22, 1876, p. 4Google Scholar: “Coffee: Central American, 19 1/2 to 21 cents; Java, 27 cents; Manila, 20 1/2 cents.”
65 The figures by country were printed in the Washington Standard, July 1, 1876, p. 2Google Scholar. The New York Times, Apr. 17, 1876, p. 4Google Scholar, described a man, apparently Brazilian, who missed seeing the emperor: “Abraham Deraisnes determined to participate in the serenade to Dom Pedro…last Saturday night, and becoming confused through liquor, he strayed into the 34th Street Opera-house where he suddenly leapt on stage, drew a deputy sheriff's badge and club and announced he was arresting the performers.” The piece concluded that Deraisnes was himself arrested. “The actresses were in great consternation.” No explanation of the man's strange behavior, other than strong drink, was offered.
66 Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Apr. 29, 1876, p. 125Google Scholar.
67 A summary of the Confederate emigration to Brazil may be found in Weaver, Blanche Henry Clark, “Confederate Emigration to Brazil,” Journal of Southern History, 27 (Feb. 1961): 33–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A more recent work, highly favorable to the Confederates, contains numerous flaws i n interpretation and appears to have been heavily dependent on folklore:Harter, Eugene C., The Lost Colony of the Confederacy (Jackson, MS, 1985)Google Scholar. Harter is a Brazilian-born descendant of ex-Confederates.
68 San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 23, 1876, p. 1Google Scholar.
69 Atlanta Constitution, May 12, 1876, p. 2Google Scholar.
70 Oregonian (Portland), Apr. 28, 1876, p. 1Google Scholar.
71 Ibid., May 2, 1876, p. 3.
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74 , Norton, Frank Leslie's Historical Register of the Centennial Exposition, 301Google Scholar.
75 The incident was widely described in contemporary newspapers. This account comes from , Williams, Dom Pedro the Magnanimous, 210–11Google Scholar.
76 Oregonian (Portland), Apr. 29, 1876, p. 1Google Scholar.
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78 Ibid., June 8, 1876, p. 1.
79 The celebrated scientist had died on Dec. 14, 1873, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Agassiz, his wife, and a party of scientists had traveled through Brazil from April 1865 to June 1866. Dom Pedro took great interest in the expedition. “The fact that the Emperor of Brazil was deeply interested in all scientific undertakings, and had expressed a warm sympathy with my efforts to establish a great zoological museum in this country, aiding me even by sending collections made expressly under his order for the purpose, was an additional incentive,” Agassiz wrote in the preface of the posthumously published account of the trip; Louis and Elizabeth Agassiz, A Journey in Brazil, v.
80 Several members of the Harvard faculty had been connected with the Agassiz expedition a decade earlier. However, the emperor did not meet only scientists during his U.S. visit. Williams tells of Dom Pedro's meetings with Whittier and other poets during his stay in Boston; see , Williams, Dom Pedro the Magnanimous, 206Google Scholar. The story of the emperor translating Whittier's poems into Portuguese is told in the Boston Evening Transcript, Apr. 17, 1876, p. 4Google Scholar.
81 Cincinnati Gazette, quoted in Atlanta Constitution, May 27, 1876, p. 1Google Scholar.
82 Boston Evening Transcript, June 14, 1876, p. 1Google Scholar.
83 Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Apr. 29, 1876, p. 125Google Scholar.
84 Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., an important benefactor of one such New York school, accompanied the emperor to several New York primary and secondary schools. The father of the future president was then a forty-one-year-old partner in a prominent import firm. His seventeen-year-old son Theodore was preparing to enter Harvard in the fall. There is no record of young TR meeting Dom Pedro. For a detailed account of the tour, see New York Times, Apr. 18, 1876, p. 7Google Scholar. For a portrait of the elder Roosevelt and a brief description of his philanthropy, see Morris, Edmund, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (New York, 1979)Google Scholar.
85 The elder Theodore Roosevelt sat on stage, too, next to the emperor and, apparently, described to him what some of the ceremonies meant.New York Times, Apr. 17, 1876, p. 5Google Scholar.
86 He reportedly “surprised ” the San Francisco rabbis with his knowledge of Hebrew.San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 29, 1876, p. 4Google Scholar. Note his similar feat in a London synagogue five years earlier, reported in , Williams, Dom Pedro the Magnanimous, 155Google Scholar.
87 The quote is from the dispatch from the “special correspondent” for the San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 25, 1876, p. 4Google Scholar.
88 Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Apr. 25, 1876, p. 2Google Scholar.
89 San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 1876, p. 4Google Scholar.
90 The quote is from the San Francisco Chronicle, April 30, 1876, p. 4Google Scholar.
91 Brazil suffered from bad press in the United States because of the slavery issue and the country's trade competition with American farmers. One odd case of a mythical Brazilian, so rich he offered to give away money, was described in an article headlined “Brazilian Wedding Hoax” in the Boston Evening Transcript, Apr. 27, 1876, p. 2Google Scholar: “Some months ago a bogus report was published of the marriage of DeSouza Cabral of Diamentina, Brazil, one of the richest and most extravagant men in the world. Begging letters accumulated at the New York Post Office, and the author of the hoax asked the post office to deliver them to him. The Postmaster General refused and the letters were returned to the writers. An average of twenty letters per week came into the New York office alone. The writers represented every condition in life; but while all parts of the Union were well represented, the South furnished the largest contingent.”
92 Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Apr. 22, 1876, p. 106Google Scholar. See also Atlanta Constitution, May 21, 1876, p. 2Google Scholar: “Queen Emma, the Grand Duke Alexis, King Kalakaua and Dom Pedro are small fry beside the pordy Queen of England, the Empress of India. She would receive a hearty welcome and among the centennial relics that we could show her would be a goodly lot of famous battlefields saved over from the days of 1776.”
93 Burns, E. Bradford, A History of Brazil, 3rd ed. (New York, 1993), 223–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As Burns notes, the emperor “quietiy opposed slavery” almost from the beginning of his reign. In 1840, he liberated all of his own slaves. He suggested gradual emancipation in 1864 and presented a plan in his speech from the throne in 1867. See also , Bethell, Cambridge History of Latin America, 3:724–43Google Scholar.
94 For an account of the fall of the empire, see Simmons, Charles Willis, Marshal Deodoro and the Fall of Dom Pedro II (Durham, NC, 1966)Google Scholar. See also Bernstein, Harry, Dom Pedro II (New York, 1973)Google Scholar; and , Bethel, Cambridge History of Latin America, 3:683–92Google Scholar.
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