Born on 2 December 1825, Pedro II was, at the time of his father's abdication, 5 years and 4 months old, and therefore could not assume the government which, by law, would be headed by a regency made up of three representatives.

During the regency, a series of local provincial rebellions erupted all over Brazil, such as the Cabanagem, in Grão-Pará, the Balaiada in Maranhão, the Sabinada, in Bahia, and the Ragamuffin War, in Rio Grande do Sul, the latter being the largest and longest.

The "Council of State" implemented the Moderating Power instituted by emperor Pedro I when he dissolved the Constituent Assembly that was tasked with drafting Brazil's first constitution right after its independence from Portugal.

[4] Pedro I's reaction as a result of the popular unrest and the events that followed caused surprise even among the exalted liberals, as the emperor decided to abdicate in favor of his son at dawn on 7 April 1831.

For the protection of the young emperor and his sisters, Francisca and Januária, who also remained in the country, the princes stayed in the palace of São Cristóvão or Boa Vista, then in the suburbs of the capital.

A troubled period had begun, in which Brazil's territorial unity and the central authority were questioned and put to the test by several riots, revolts and rebellions.

[13] In its administration, the newly elected regency promoted the reforms of the Schools of Medicine in Rio and Salvador, converting them into faculties; the judicial branch was reorganized and the jury trial was established.

This amendment was drafted by deputies Francisco de Paula Sousa e Melo, the regent Costa Carvalho, and Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão,[b] from Minas Gerais, and aimed at increasing the primacy of the Legislative branch over the Executive.

Unlike when it was first instituted by emperor Pedro I, the prerogative to dismiss the Chamber of Deputies was removed, although this was already included in the changes made during the provisional regency, which also could not grant noble titles or decorations.

[4] The Moderate and the Exalted parties were later joined by the Restorer (its members were nicknamed caramurus), who preached the return of emperor Pedro I and was headed by José Bonifácio,[4] who had recovered his previous political prestige by being appointed tutor to the young monarch.

[13] The then unknown town of Pouso Alegre, a few years prior known simply as Arraial de Mandu, became known throughout Brazil,[14] thanks to the figure of priest José Bento, who had gained notoriety.

Among its biggest innovations were:[5] Historian João Batista Ribeiro de Andrade Fernandes remarked that politics then took a new direction, with a supremacy of the Moderate Party:[17] "The most complete expression of this policy is found in the Additional Act that satisfied the local demands by creating provincial assemblies and abolished the Council of State while reinforcing the authority of the central government by reducing the regents to a single one; with great prudence it was possible to prevent the fragmentation of the country, which was the adoption of elected presidents for the provinces and thus other radical proposals did not find approval".

[5] Feijó faced difficulties from the beginning; among his opponents stood out Bernardo Pereira de Vasconcelos, Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão and Maciel Monteiro.

[5] With skill, however, his policy gave way in some points, such as having accepted decentralization proposals; he tried to satisfy the peoples and provincial demands, without, however, strengthening the aristocrats or the parliament; and, finally, he acted rigorously in repelling merchants and large landowners.

[18] His regency was marked by the beginning of two of the most serious internal conflicts in Brazil: the Cabanagem, in Pará, and Ragamuffin War, in Rio Grande do Sul, in addition to other local revolts.

[19] Although he did not face the turmoil that had troubled the previous governments, Araújo Lima had to deal with the Ragamuffin War, which continued to rage in southern Brazil, the Cabanagem, in Grão-Pará, and also other provincial revolts: the Sabinada, in Bahia, and the Balaiada, in Maranhão.

[20] Or yet: "It could be said that the continued exercise of the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies had given him the habit of a spectator, or rather, of an arbitrator, making him willing to act only as the mediator, who composes, accommodates and prevents clashes and disagreements".

[20] Several rebellions broke out during the regency period, seen by historiography in general from two approaches: a more conservative one, which portrays them as mere "disorders", and another that seeks to boast that they had "popular causes".

[21] In a period of nine years, rebellions broke out in almost all of Brazil, most of them resulting from the dissatisfaction of the regional elites allied with the urban middle class (made up of liberal workers such as journalists, officials and the military) who, dissatisfied with the central power in Rio de Janeiro, protested against the economic hardships, the increase of taxes and the appointment of governors without local support.

[23] Its main effect, along with the other slave uprisings of the period, was to sow fear in the ruling class, which reacted in two ways: on the one hand, it reinforced repressive laws and, on the other, it opened the debate on the slavery issue.

Its immediate economic cause was the increase in taxes in the Rio Grande do Sul province, which directly affected ranchers who were already dissatisfied with competition from Argentine and Uruguayan producers.

It achieved initial success, after the uprising that began at the São Pedro fort, which spread to the other garrisons, causing the authorities to flee, including the president of the province, Francisco de Sousa Paraíso.

[26] The government remained inoperative, under the presidency of vice-governor João Carneiro da Silva Rego; at the beginning of January of the following year their positions were being lost, until the final defeat with the military occupation of the city on March 13, which lasted until shortly after the emperor was declared of age.

[27] The movement that took place in Maranhão had an economic cause: the crisis in cotton production, which came to erupt in a revolt of slaves and cattle herders from the large farms, in December 1838, with the support of the urban liberals, who opposed the landowners.

The confrontations lasted for 3 years, causing enormous damage to the farmers, but they remained without a common political leader to organize them, being finally defeated by the reaction of the elites, with the support of imperial troops under the command of then colonel Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, future Duke of Caxias.

[19] The inaugural "landmark" of Brazilian romanticism belongs to Gonçalves de Magalhães with the publication, in 1836, of the compilation of poems Suspiros Poéticos e Saudades, in the middle of the regency period.

[32] The new law allowed capital punishment to be applied by a decision of two thirds of the jurors and no longer the unanimity required by the codes, for crimes exclusively committed by slaves (such as murdering, poisoning or harming the master, his wife, ascendants or descendants, the administrator, the overseer, etc.

[32] Although the Moderating power allowed the ruler to commute the death penalty to another, this almost never occurred during the regency period, with the result that it was at this time that prisoners in Brazil were most easily executed, most of them slaves.

In 1837 Manuel de Araújo Porto-Alegre published the first caricature in Brazil, portraying the disputes that took place within the regencies; the lithograph shows Justiniano José da Rocha,[33] a journalist who was hired for a large salary to be the editor of the Correio Oficial and, in the engraving, appears on his knees receiving a bag of money from the governor.

[36] A noteworthy fact is the existence of newspapers aimed at blacks and mestizos, which appeared during the Permanent Regency, whose titles made clear the public they were addressed to: O Crioulinho, O Homem de Cor ou o Mulato and O Brasileiro Pardo, which discussed racial issues.