Constituent Cortes of 1820

The instructions were then revised and re-issued in November, establishing the proportional representation that included in the overseas domains and abandoning the traditional division into three orders.

It involved a complex process of indirect suffrage through the formation of parish, county, and provincial electoral committees.

The first Brazilian province to declare its adherence to the Cortes was Pará on 1 January 1821, followed on February 10 by Bahia, Piauí, Maranhão and Pernambuco.

Representatives from Sao Paulo, Paraíba, Pará, Espírito Santo, Goiás and Ceará only joined the Cortes in 1822.

[2] On 9 March, less than three months after its opening meeting, the Cortes approved the "Bases of the Constitution", a document later sworn to by King John VI of Portugal on July 4 immediately after his return from exile in Brazil.

Among other reforms the Cortes suppressed Brazil’s existing provincial governments and courts, and demanded the immediate return of the Prince Regent Dom Pedro to Lisbon.

These discussions began before the Brazilian representatives arrived on August 29 and marked the beginning of a policy of confrontation between Lisbon and the regency of Dom Pedro.

This did not include the Brazilians who had abandoned the Cortes, like Cipriano Barata and Antônio Carlos de Andrada e Silva.