The revolt, influenced by revolutions taking place in Europe, was due in part to unresolved conflicts left over from the Regency period and local resistance to the consolidation of the Empire of Brazil that had been proclaimed in 1822.

Under the unreformed colonial social structure that remained from the 18th century, a small group of landowners in the influential province of Pernambuco controlled most of the workable land and preferred to concentrate on agricultural products for export.

In this feudal atmosphere of enforced silence, the editor of the short-lived journal O Progresso (1846–1848), Antônio Pedro de Figueiredo, spoke out for half of the province's population that were "vassals under the yoke" and declared that "the division of our soil in grand properties is the source of the major part of our ills."

A popular saying of the time went: which translates approximately as: The key to this saying is the witty Portuguese pun between Cavalcante (a rich family of Pernambuco, but also horse rider, mounter) and cavalgado (ridden, mounted).

[10] A "Manifesto to the World" calling for free and universal voting rights, freedom of the press, federalism and the end of the "Poder Moderador" (the Moderating Power – the supremacy of the emperor over the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of the government that was instituted in the Brazilian Constitution of 1824), was on January 1, 1849.