PEDRO II. DE ALCANTARA. 



615' 





The yerbales are said to occupy an area of 

 some 3,000,000 acres. The value of the tea 

 exported in the time of Lopez never exceeded 

 $800,000 per annum, when it was sold to for- 

 eign purchasers at the rate of about $3.00 per 

 twenty-five pounds. But the trade is now 

 much more profitable, since the article, though 

 having risen to fifty cents per pound in Bue- 

 nos Ayres, is more extensively exported than 

 ever. Most of the arable land is under culti- 

 vation ; but, for lack of hands and proper in- 

 struments, the tillage is far from being perfect. 



The chief cultivated products, and the extent 

 of land devoted to them respectively, in 1863, 

 were as follows : 



Products. Acres. 



Maize.... 240,000 



Mandioca 110,000 



Beans 75,000 



Cotton 82,000 



Tobacco 23,000 



Sugar-cane 25,000 



Mani 11,000 



Rice, vegetables, etc 34,000 



Total 550,000* 



The tobacco of Paraguay yields three crops 

 every year, and is largely consumed within 

 the republic, where people of both sexes and 

 of all ages smoke almost incessantly. The 

 home consumption of this article in former 

 years was estimated at fifteen million pounds 

 annually, and the exports at six million pounds. 

 A gold medal was awarded for Paraguay tobac- 

 co at the Paris Exhibition of 1855. Cigars are 

 extensively manufactured for export, mainly 

 to Buenos Ayres. 



Little or no wheat is produced ; maize, often 

 yielding one hundred and fifty for one, and 

 mandioca, of which there are whole farms in 

 many districts, are the chief articles of food 

 used by the inhabitants. 



Public instruction continues to be encour- 

 aged. 



The name of Paraguay is still rarely heard 

 or seen otherwise than in connection with its 

 onerous indebtedness to the other Platine 

 states, to Brazil, and to Great Britain, and the 

 vexed question of limits. Concerning the lat- 

 ter subject, some remarks will be found in the 

 articles AKGESTTINE REPUBLIC and BEAZIL in 

 this volume. 



PEDRO II. DE ALCANTARA (John Charles 

 Leopold Salvador Bibiana Francis Zavier de 

 Paula Leocadio Michael Gabriel Raphael 

 Gonzaga), Emperor of Brazil, born December 

 2, 1825. His father was Dom Pedro I. of Bra- 

 ganza and Bourbon ; and his mother, Leopol- 

 dina Carolina Josephine of Austria ; and he 

 is consequently the legitimate descendant of 

 three of the most ancient royal houses of Eu- 

 rope Braganza, Bourbon, and Hapsburg. 

 Dom Pedro I., son of John VI., abdicated the 

 throne of Portugal in favor of his daughter Don- 

 na Maria, May 2, 1826 ; -and subsequently (April 

 7, 1831), after a prolonged and hopeless strug- 



* " Hand-book of the Kiver Plate Kepublics," 1875. 



gle against an obstinate and ever-growing op- 

 position, he abdicated the throne of Brazil in 

 favor of his present Imperial Majesty, then 

 only in his sixth year. 



Thus the early years of the young Emperor, 

 whose education was conducted with the ut- 

 most care and solicitude, were passed amid the 

 turmoils which followed the declaration of 

 Brazilian independence. From his accession 

 until 1833 the Government was administered 

 by a single regent, Bonifacio Joze de Andrade 

 e Silva, formerly a leader of the democratic 

 party ; and afterward, until 1840, by a coun- 

 cil of regency. But, through the zeal with 

 which all statesmen, whatever their political 

 creeds or principles, defended their country's 

 welfare and their sovereign's rights, the Bra- 

 zilian constitution, even during the most criti- 

 cal period, was preserved intact. 



In 1840 Dom Pedro II., though still under age, 

 was declared by the Chambers to have attained 

 his majority; he assumed the reins of govern- 

 ment on July 23d of that year ; and the cere- 

 mony of his coronation was solemnized July 

 18, 1841. 



A determined effort to substitute a Federal 

 Government instead of the existing order of 

 things, during 1841 and 1842, was promptly 

 and efficiently frustrated, and by the end of 

 the latter year the whole republican party was 

 reduced to submission. The only other inci- 

 dents that occurred of a nature to disturb the 

 peace of the empire since that time, were a 

 series of political uprisings, chiefly in Pernam- 

 buco, Sao Paulo, and Minas Geraes, and di- 

 rected against the provincial governments or 

 against the measures or the ministers of the 

 central Government; but none attained the 

 proportions of a civil war. 



An alliance having been made between Bra- 

 zil, Uruguay, and the forces of Entre-Rios, 

 against Rosas, the aid then afforded by the 

 imperial arms materially contributed to the 

 downfall of the Argentine dictator ; and among 

 the fruits of the intervention was the free 

 navigation of the Plata and its great feeders ; 

 an event which, with a certain territorial ag- 

 grandizement of the empire, inaugurated an 

 era of general prosperity for Brazil. 



Among the more notable events which have 

 tended to popularize Dom Pedro's reign and 

 consolidate his power, may be mentioned the 

 determined and judicious attitude he assumed 

 on the occasion of the quarrel with the British 

 Government in 1862 a quarrel settled in his 

 favor by the arbitration of Leopold L, King of 

 the Belgians ; the five years' war against Para- 

 guay, begun in 1865 by Brazil, the Argentine 

 Republic, and Uruguay (the triple alliance of 

 May 1, 1865), and terminating with the fall of 

 Lopez, who was slain at Aquidaban, March 1, 

 1870, Brazil acquiring as a part of her war in- 

 demnity 1,163 (?) square miles of Paraguayan 

 territory ; and, above all, the bold attack upon 

 and complete triumph over the national preju- 

 dice of the necessity of black labor the law 



