Crewmen mutinied in November 1910 aboard Bahia, Deodoro, Minas Geraes, and São Paulo, beginning the four-day Revolta da Chibata (Revolt of the Lash).

Brazil's capital city of Rio de Janeiro was held hostage by the possibility of a naval bombardment, leading the government to give in to the rebel demands which included the abolition of flogging in the navy.

[7][8] With a design that borrowed heavily from the British Adventure-class scout cruisers,[1] Bahia's keel was laid on 19 August 1907 in Armstrong Whitworth's Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne yard.

[3] As a class, Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul were the fastest cruisers in the world when they were commissioned,[1] and the first in the Brazilian Navy to utilize steam turbines for propulsion.

[13] The crews of the torpedo boats remained loyal to the government,[13] and army troops moved to the presidential palace and the coastline, but neither group could stop the mutineers.

[12][13] The government also issued official pardons and a statement of regret; its submission resulted in the rebellion's end on 26 November, when control of the four ships was handed back to the navy.

[3][17] While the official Brazilian history of the ship definitively claims to have sunk a submarine,[3] author Robert Scheina notes that this action was never confirmed,[17] and works published about U-boat losses in the war do not agree.

[17] Complications arose when both Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul had problems with their condensers, a matter which was made much worse by the hot, tropical climate in which the ships were serving.

[17] Sometime in early 1919, Bahia, accompanied by four destroyers, voyaged to Portsmouth, England; they then traveled across the English Channel to Cherbourg, arriving there on 15 February.

[3] Still, in 1930 The New York Times labeled Bahia and the other warships in Brazil's navy as "obsolete" and noted that nearly all were "older than the ages considered effective by powers signatory to the Washington and London Naval Treaties.

"[23] On 28 June 1926, the Ludington Daily News reported that Bahia would pay a visit to Philadelphia, accepting an invitation from the United States government to participate in the sesquicentennial celebrations.

[24] Traveling on board the Brazilian-Lloyd ocean liner Almirante Jacequay, Prestes was returning American then-President-elect Herbert Hoover's visit to Brazil in December 1928.

[26][27] After spending five hours in the Ambrose Channel due to fog, Prestes traveled on a launch to a pier, during which Bahia rendered one 21-gun salute and Fort Jay offered two.

[27] After arriving ashore, he traveled to City Hall before speeding down to Washington, D.C.[27] He stayed in the United States for eight days before departing for France on the White Star Line's Olympic.

[27] During the Brazilian Revolution of 1930, Bahia served with Rio Grande do Sul—until that ship defected—and five or six destroyers off the coast of Santa Catarina; they were once again commanded by Belford Gomes.

[3][29][F] Two years later, when the state of São Paulo rebelled in the Constitutionalist Revolution, Bahia—under the command of Frigate Captain Lucas Alexandre Boiteux—and other vessels blockaded the rebel-held port of Santos.

[33] From 17 to 22 May 1935,[34][35] Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul—joined at an unknown point by the Argentine battleships Rivadavia and Moreno, the heavy cruisers Almirante Brown and Veinticinco de Mayo, and five destroyers[35]—escorted São Paulo, with Brazilian President Getúlio Vargas embarked, up the Río de la Plata (River Plate) to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina.

[3] Allied warships were assigned to patrol in the Atlantic as rescue ships at the end of hostilities in the European theater, stationed near routes frequented by military transport aircraft carrying personnel from Europe to the continuing war in the Pacific.

[42][44][H] Naval historian Robert Scheina contends that the disaster was revealed when Rio Grande do Sul arrived on station four days after the sinking to take Bahia's place and could not find it.

[6][I] Contemporaneous news articles also published varying numbers; The Evening Independent stated that the ship carried 383 men, though it did not give any more information.

[42] Vice Admiral Jorge Dodsworth Martins, Brazil's chief of naval intelligence, thought that Bahia could have been mined or torpedoed by U-530,[43][48] which surrendered under strange circumstances in Mar del Plata, Argentina on 10 July (some two months after Germany's surrender), but the Argentine Naval Ministry stated that it would have been impossible for the submarine to travel from the site of the sinking to Mar del Plata in six days (4–10 July).

[48][J] U-977 was also heading to Argentina seeking asylum, and it was also accused of sinking Bahia, but military investigations by the US and Brazilian navies concluded that the cruiser had been sunk due to the gunnery accident.