[1] Born in Ipioca [pt] (today a district of the city of Maceió in the state of Alagoas) and nicknamed "The Iron Marshal" (Portuguese: o Marechal de ferro),[2] he was the first vice president of Brazil to have succeeded the president mid-term.

Floriano Peixoto was an army marshal (he was promoted to this rank in 1874) when elected vice president in February 1891, he gained notoriety throughout his life for his strong abolitionist, anti-racist, and anti-corruption stance.

Floriano Peixoto came to the presidency in a difficult period of the new Brazilian Republic, which was in the midst of a general political and economic crisis made worse by the effects of the bursting of the Encilhamento economic bubble, but his policies successfully put an end to the successive economic crises that had plagued the country since 1889 and in a short period of time the economy stabilized and grew again.

Floriano Peixoto defeated a naval officers' rebellion against him in 1893–1894 and the Federalist Revolution in the States of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Paraná, with the use of strength during the same year to maintain territorial integrity.

His government was marked by an increased centralization of power, personalismo, republicanism, patriotism, nationalism, and for the fervent criticism of monarchy, with the "Florianista" ("Florianismo") cult of personality being the first phenomenon of a favorable political expression towards a republican politician in Brazil.