[1] Inspired by the monarchist ideologies of Gaspar da Silveira Martins, who had been one of the most prominent politicians by the end of the monarchy and acted as political head of the revolution, the federalists had Gumercindo Saraiva as the military head supported by his brother Aparicio Saraiva, of the Uruguayan National Party, and by the Navy rebels who, after being defeated at the capital following the Rio de Janeiro Affair, moved south to strengthen the federalist forces.

[2] The rebels' objective was to group the forces against the republican government of Floriano Peixoto and march to the capital, Rio de Janeiro, to depose him.

In the last years of the Brazilian Empire, three antagonistic political leaders appeared in the region: the liberal Assis Brasil, the conservative Pinheiro Machado and positivist Júlio de Castilhos.

After graduating, he returned to his homeland and began to write in the newspaper The Federation (Brazilian Portuguese: A Federação), attacking the monarchical government, slavery and his political opponent Gaspar da Silveira Martins.

He was a constituent congressman in 1890-1891, and believed in a dictatorial phase to consolidate the Brazilian Republic, defending a strong centralization of power in the republished dictator.

Gaspar da Silveira Martins, an intellectual and a good orator, had been appointed minister by emperor Pedro II in one of his last acts in an attempt to save the monarchy.

A second group, commanded by general João Nunes da Silva Tavares [pt], occupied another region of the state with a force of three thousand men.

The followers of Júlio de Castilhos received the nickname of pica-paus or ximangos, due to the color of the uniform used by the soldiers who defended that faction, that resembled the birds of the region.

The term maragato, which was used to refer to the political current that Gaspar da Silveira Martins defended, had a more complex explanation: "In the province of Leon, Spain, there is a district called Maragateria, whose inhabitants have the name of maragatos, and that, according to some, it is a town of condemnable customs; therefore, living to wander from one point to another, with Freighters, selling and buying robberies and in turn robbing animals, they are a species of gypsies."

The reality offered some basis for this assertion - Gumercindo Saraiva, one of the leaders of the revolution, had entered Rio Grande do Sul from Uruguay by the border of Aceguá, in the Cerro Largo Department, commanding soldiers that included natives from that country.

Efficiently, the maragatos dominated the border, demanding the deposition of Júlio de Castilhos, who had been elected president of the state by direct vote.

Due to the seriousness of the movement, the rebellion quickly acquired nationwide attention, threatening the stability of the state's government and the republican regime throughout Brazil.

Floriano Peixoto, then in the Presidency of the Republic, sent federal troops under the command of general Hipólito Ribeiro [pt] to rescue Júlio de Castilhos.

Gumercindo Saraiva and his troops went to Dom Pedrito, from there they began a series of lightning attacks against several points of the state, destabilizing the positions conquered by the Republicans.

They then headed north, advancing in November on Santa Catarina state and arriving in Paraná, being stopped in the city of Lapa, sixty kilometers southwest of Curitiba.

The fierce resistance opposed to the federalist troops in the city of Lapa, by colonel Carneiro, frustrated the rebellious pretensions to arrive at the capital of the Republic.

With the complicity of the officials there, he began to respond to telegraph calls as if he were the loyalist troops of Lapa, warning that thousands of federalist rebels were marching towards Curitiba.

The Governing Junta of Curitiba became the "Commission for Launching the War Loan" for the purpose of raising funds for the rebels and thereby buying the city's protection.

"Then they gathered in a mansion that existed in the Alto da Glória and appointed another governor, João Meneses Dória, who remained until March" reports Hapner.

"[12] Historian Rafael Sêga, from the Federal Technological University of Paraná, explains: "The version that the Republic was imposed without blood was created by the ruling class, which wanted to legitimize itself.

"[12] The Federalist Revolution was likely the bloodiest civil war in independent Brazil's history, leaving circa 10.000 deads and many more wounded and the southern fields and some municipalities ravaged.

In return for peace and the absence of looting, the Baron secretly lent, with the support of some traders, money to Gumercindo Saraiva, head of the Maragatos.

From then on, he began to pay more attention to his life at the Rincón Pereyra ranch, which he owned in Uruguay, having died suddenly, in a hotel room in Montevideo.

That allowed the federalists to smuggle weapons across the border, to practice tactical raids on foreign territory to escape persecution, and to take refuge in neighboring countries at times of disadvantage against the enemy.

In the federal capital of Rio de Janeiro, the Navy Rebels, aligned with the federalists, faced a direct foreign intervention when an American fleet headed by Admiral Andrew E. K. Benham, stationed at the Guanabara Bay, engaged in a series of conflicts with the Brazilian rebel ships in what came to be known as the Rio de Janeiro Affair, resulting in a heavily damaged Brazilian ironclad and in lowering the morale of the rebel sailors, whose leader, admiral Saldanha da Gama, offered to surrender his fleet to the Americans, who refused.

In 1894 president Floriano Peixoto broke official diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Portugal, accusing the Portuguese government of supporting the exiled rebel sailors.

Accordingly, since the navy rebels were branded as monarchists, Floriano believed the King of Portugal, Carlos I, of encouraging revolutionary enterprises to restore the monarchy of the House of Braganza in Brazil.