Festivities, disputes and political changes in Recife during the Independence period

Abstract

In this work we analyze the civic celebrations in Recife at the confluence of studies of cultural history and political history, putting parties at the center of the debate. Its focus was on its social and political functions between the years 1820 and 1825 through correspondence analysis of the authorities, periodicals, reports of contemporaries and memorialists. Politics, economy, religion, work, everything is present at festivities. They were directly influenced by the peculiarities of the period studied, especially by the independence, formation of the National State and by the liberal insurrections. The festive, cultural and political expressions involved the efforts of various social agents in the struggle for new institutional arrangements, especially for the independence of Brazil. In this period of intense changes, the parties were one of the means used for people to experience change and internalize loyalty to the new state. We show the parties as a space to show patriotism, the preparations for the celebrations, their main rites, the forms of fun present in these parties and the constitutions of new identities built by the different groups on those occasions, nationally and locally.