The rebels were led by Generals Bento Gonçalves da Silva and Antônio de Sousa Neto with the support of the Italian fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi.

It was inspired by the recently-ended Cisplatine War and maintained connections with both Uruguayan leaders as well as independent Argentine provinces such as Corrientes and Santa Fe.

[5] On 20 September 1835, General Bento Gonçalves captured the capital, Porto Alegre, beginning an uprising against the perceived unfair trade reinforced by the provincial government.

In Porto Alegre, the rebels, also known as "ragamuffins" (Portuguese: farrapos) after the fringed leather worn by the gaúchos,[6] elected Marciano José Pereira Ribeiro their new president.

[7] Responding to the situation and further upsetting the rebels, the Brazilian regent, Diogo Antônio Feijó, appointed a new provincial president, who was forced to take office in exile in Rio Grande.

[8] Pushing to consolidate their power, Antônio de Souza Neto declared the independence of the Riograndense, or the Republic of Piratini, on 11 September 1836, with Bento Gonçalves as president nominee.

Without an appropriate port for their newborn republican navy, the revolutionaires aimed for one of the main cities of Santa Catarina, Laguna, which was taken by the rebels but fell back into imperial hands after four months.

[citation needed] The same year saw General Lima e Silva take command of Imperial forces in the area and try to negotiate a settlement.

In 1832, the Ragamuffin Party was founded by Lieutenant Luís José dos Reis Alpoim, deported from Rio de Janeiro to Porto Alegre.

[12] Southern Freemasonry, tending to republican ideals,[13] had an essential role in the directions taken, and many of the Ragamuffin leaders were its adherents, among them, Bento Gonçalves da Silva, with the codename Sucre.

The most famous village is called São Nicolau and is located in Rio Pardo, consisting of indigenous people from the eastern reductions.

As mentioned before, some indigenous individuals were arrested for disobedience to the orders of their superiors, which indicates that they probably did not occupy a prestigious space within the military hierarchy.

A research done at the UFRGS Central Library collection found only eight books that mentioned the indigenous presence in the Ragamuffin War among more than 50 works.

[17] Three other works (A Epopéia Farroupilha: pequena história da Grande Revolução, acompanhada de farta documentação da época: 1835–1845, by Spalding (1963); A Revolução Farroupilha (1835–1845) – Narrativa Sintética das Operações Militares by Augusto Tasso Fragoso[clarification needed]) comment on the indigenous presence in the troops of General Bento Manoel Ribeiro.

Among these books, the one that has a more comprehensive commentary is Fragoso's, where, in his description of the victory of Bento Manoel's loyalist troops in the combat of Passo do Rosário, he emphasizes the existence of infantry composed of 80 Guaraní and, lists in a footnote, that in Bento Manoel's forces during the Fanfa battle, an infantry unit, and a lancer unit was coming from the missions and, therefore, presenting a high probability of being composed of Guaranís.

[17] It is possible that even in the early 19th century, the indigenous population was almost nonexistent in the region, as a result of ethnic cleansing taken into effect against Charruas, Guenoas, and Minuanos on orders from Montevideo and the earlier Spanish rule on previous decades.

In addition to being soldiers and great defenders of the rags, the Afro-Brazilians also worked as drovers, messengers, campeiros and helped in the manufacture of gunpowder and in the cultivation of tobacco and yerba mate, appreciated by the group.