On July 1, the President (PT) released Bill No. 3220/2025, which establishes as “National Day of the Independence Consolidation of Brazil”. The Brazilian press reverberated the fact with some shyness. However, on the other side of the Atlantic, the initiative generated a great discomfort.
In a debate promoted by CNN, in the Arena CNN board aired on the 2nd, some debaters, besides the presenter, argued that the project was populist, implied political despair and even raise doubts about the full mental faculties of the Brazilian president. They argued that the project would generate fractures not only in Brazil, but fundamentally between Brazil and Portugal.
The criticisms are inconsistent in three aspects: in the analysis of the political moment of Brazil, in understanding the process of building a bill and about the most recent historiographical movements on the subject. In the first case, attribute to the project the condition of raising votes or even reversing an alleged electoral rejection lacks support. Similarly, it implies the project exclusively to an act of will of the President disregards, among other things, the justifications of the Ministry of Culture, as well as the subsequent debate in the legislative houses.
Finally, there is an assumption that it recognizes July 2, 1823 as the day of the consolidation of independence would be to rewrite the story by falseing it. Now, but it is precisely the result of the historiographical approaches generated by new research since the beginning of the century which supports the relevance of the project. Since then, historians and historians of universities from all over the country have shown that Brazil’s independence was a much more complex process than the myth of is able to reveal.
On the contrary, the synthesis represented by the cry of Ipiranga ends up drowning events – decisive to break with Portugal – in the provinces and the participation and protagonism of women, indigenous, black and black, free poor in general.
Independence. In Bahia, a war that lasted just over a year mobilized the entire province. While Portuguese military occupied the capital, the disgruntled Bahians made a rebel capital village, enlisting troops and surrounding it. Submitted by d. Pedro, the French general recruited soldiers from Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio de Janeiro, among other regions. From that moment on, war was a Brazilian war, as the historian Luis Henrique Dias Tavares taught us.
After a long siege, on July 2, 1823, the Portuguese army withdrew from Bahia in a major operation: about 100 vessels took close to 10,000 people, including military and civilians, towards Lisbon, comparable to the dim delegation. John, years before. The defeat of the largest Portuguese military contingent in America made any control plan of any region of Brazil unfeasible.
Brazilian troops were maintained mostly by ordinary people, with no barracks or battle experience, including fishermen, seafood and cowboys. Thus, the July Two Feast also celebrates this popular independence, whose symbol is the figures of the caboclos and caboclas that parade through the streets of Salvador, Itaparica, Cachoeira, São Félix and so many other cities.
The recognition of July 2 as the day of independence consolidation is, therefore, a reckoning of Brazilian accounts with oneself. Part of the Portuguese intellectuality needs to do the same, looking at the story itself. Perhaps this is a sensitive theme, considering that in 2025, ancient colonies such as Cape Verde, Angola and Mozambique celebrate 50 years of their independence, achieved through significant wars. On the side of the Atlantic, 200 years later, we are no longer possible to disregard that our independence was also achieved in iron and fire.
