Brazil: circulation commemoratives of the 1930s and 1940s

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Brazil, 100  reis, 1932.  Martim Afonso Tibiriçá, Cacique Guaianá, born circa 1440, died 1562.

Chief Tibiriçá (died 1562), baptized as Martim Afonso, was an Amerindian leader who converted to Christianity under the auspices of José de Anchieta. He led the Tupiniquim people of Piratininga and other tribes. His daughter, Bartira, took the name Isabel and married a Portuguese man named João Ramalho. After his conversion to Christianity he became a strategic ally and protector of the Jesuits and the Portuguese; his name appears on letters to Saint Ignatius of Loyola and King João III of Portugal. Tibiriçá chose to side with the Jesuits and against his own brother Piquerobi with help of his nephew and his son-in-law João Ramalho. His granddaughters and their descendants married Portuguese noblemen that led the colonization of São Paulo under Martim Afonso de Sousa, including Jorge Ferreira, Domingos Luiz (a knight of the Order of Christ), and Tristão de Oliveira, son of capitão-mor Antonio de Oliveira and Genebra Leitão de Vasconcelos, both of important noble families.

Tibiriçá has left many descendants in Brazil and elsewhere, via his daughters, who had offspring with Portuguese settlers. Amador Bueno and his descendants, for example. Tibiriçá is also the the 14th great-grandfather of Queen Silvia of Sweden.

 

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Brazil, 200 reis, 1932.

One of the four ships of De Sousa, founder of the Portuguese colony at Sao Vicente in 1532. Nothing is known about De Sousa's ships, not even their name, so the picture is an artist's impression of a caravel, maybe based on Columbus's Santa Maria.

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Brazil, 400 reis, 1932.  400th anniversary of colonisation.

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In this early stage of the colonization of Brazil, and also later, the Portuguese frequently relied on the help of European adventurers who lived together with the aborigines and knew their languages and culture. The most famous of these was the Portuguese João Ramalho (1493-1580), who lived among the Guaianaz tribe near today's São Paulo.

Brazil, 500 reis, 1932.  The reverse presumably shows a medieval tunic.

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Martim Afonso de Sousa (c. 1500-1564) was a Portuguese noble, explorer and colonial administrator. Born in Vila Viçosa, he was commander of the first official Portuguese expedition into mainland of the colony of Brazil. Threatened by the presence of French and Dutch ships along the coast of Brazil, the Portuguese crown in December 1530 sent a fleet with 400 people led by Martim Afonso de Sousa to establish control and explore. His mission was to place Portuguese markers as far south as the River Plate estuary, but he was shipwrecked there.

Upon return to São Vicente and Santos, in 1532 he led troops guided by the native inhabitants and by earlier Portuguese settlers such as João Ramalho up the Serra do Mar mountains to the area near the future village of São Paulo. On the high plateau, he founded the town of Santo André. He also established a sugar mill near the coast at São Vicente, with sugarcane brought from the Portuguese Cape Verde islands. In both activities, Afonso de Sousa established a pattern followed by Portuguese colonizers and Brazilians for long afterward: the "entradas" and "bandeiras" – or explorations and raids into the interior – and the production of sugar along the coast for export. Sousa was the first Royal Governor of Brazil. He settled in the north-east region of the modern country. He also acquired Diu, in India for Portugal in 1535. From 1542 to 1545 he was governor of Portuguese India. He died in Lisbon in 1571

Brazil, 1000 reis, 1932.  The reverse shows the family arms.

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King John III of Portugal (1502-1557) was the King of Portugal and the Algarves from 13 December 1521 to 11 June 1557. He was the son of King Manuel I and Maria of Aragon, the third daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. John succeeded his father in 1521, at the age of nineteen.

During his rule, Portuguese possessions were extended in Asia and in the New World through the Portuguese colonization of Brazil. John III's policy of reinforcing Portugal's bases in India (such as Goa) secured Portugal's monopoly over the spice trade of cloves and nutmeg from the Maluku Islands, as a result of which John III has been called the "Grocer King". On the eve of his death in 1557, the Portuguese empire spanned almost 1 billion acres (about 4 million square kilometers).

During his reign, the Portuguese became the first Europeans to make contact with both China, under the Ming Dynasty, and Japan, during the Muromachi period. He abandoned Muslim territories in North Africa in favor of trade with India and investment in Brazil. In Europe, he improved relations with the Baltic region and the Rhineland, hoping that this would bolster Portuguese trade.



Brazil, 2000 reis, 1932.  The reverse shows his royal arms.

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José de Anchieta (1534-1597) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary to the Portuguese colony of Brazil in the second half of the 16th century. A highly influential figure in Brazil's history in the first century after its European discovery, Anchieta was one of the founders of São Paulo in 1554 and of Rio de Janeiro in 1565. He is the first playwright, the first grammarian and the first poet born in the Canary Islands, and the father of Brazilian literature. Anchieta was also involved in the religious instruction and conversion to the Catholic faith of the Indian population. His efforts along with those of another Jesuit missionary, Manuel da Nóbrega, at Indian pacification were crucial to the establishment of stable colonial settlements in the colony.

With his book The Art of Grammar, Anchieta became the first person to provide an orthography to the Old Tupi language most commonly spoken by the indigenous people of Brazil. It is recognized as the first written compilation of an indigenous language made in the Americas. Anchieta is commonly known as "the Apostle of Brazil". He was canonized by Pope Francis on 3 April 2014. He was the second native of the Canary Islands, after Peter of Saint Joseph Betancur, also a missionary to Latin America, declared a saint by the Catholic Church.





Brazil, 1000 reis.  The reverse shows an open Bible.

Though the coin shown here is dated 1936, an earlier version was first issued in 1935. The 1935 version weighed 8 grams and was 26mm in diameter. The 1936 version weighed 7.1 grams and had a diameter of 24.3mm. This lighter version was also issued in 1937 and 1938.

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Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias (1803-1880), nicknamed "the Peacemaker" and "Iron Duke", was an army officer, politician and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. Like his father and uncles, Caxias pursued a military career. In 1823 he fought as a young officer in the Brazilian War for Independence against Portugal, then spent three years in Brazil's southernmost province, Cisplatina, as the government unsuccessfully resisted that province's secession in the Cisplatine War. Though his own father and uncles renounced Emperor Dom Pedro I during the protests of 1831, Caxias remained loyal. Pedro I abdicated in favor of his young son Dom Pedro II, whom Caxias instructed in swordsmanship and horsemanship and eventually befriended.

During Pedro II's minority the governing regency faced countless rebellions throughout the country. Again breaking with his father and other relatives sympathetic to the rebels, from 1839 to 1845 Caxias commanded loyalist forces suppressing such uprisings as the Balaiada, the Liberal rebellions of 1842 and the Ragamuffin War. In 1851, under his command, the Brazilian army prevailed against the Argentine Confederation in the Platine War; a decade later Caxias, as army marshal (the army's highest rank), led Brazilian forces to victory in the Paraguayan War. As a reward he was raised to the titled nobility, becoming successively a baron, count, and marquis, finally becoming the only person created duke during Pedro II's 58-year reign.

In the early 1840s Caxias became a member of the Reactionary Party, which evolved into the Party of Order and finally the Conservative Party. He was elected senator in 1846. The Emperor appointed him president of the Council of Ministers (prime minister) in 1856; he briefly held that office again in 1861, but fell when his party lost its parliamentary majority. Over the decades Caxias witnessed the growth and zenith of his party, then its slow decline as internal conflict divided it. In 1875 he headed a cabinet for the last time, and after years of failing health he died in May 1880.

In the years after his death and mainly following the downfall of the Brazilian monarchy, Caxias' reputation was initially overshadowed by that of Manuel Luís Osório, Marquis of Erval, but with time surpassed even Erval's renown. In 1925 his birthday was established as the Day of the Soldier, a day of honor for the Brazilian army. On 13 March 1962 he was officially designated the army's protector—​its soldierly ideal and the most important figure in its tradition. Historians have regarded Caxias positively, several ranking him as the greatest of Brazil's military officers.



Brazil, 2000 reis, 1935.  This was one-year version featuring the Duke of Caxias. A different portrait appeared on a coin of 1936.

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Here is the later version.

Brazil, 2000 reis, 1936.  The Duke of Caxias. This version, on a round planchet as before, was also issued in 1937 and 1938. Also in 1937 and 1938, a 24-sided version of this coin was issued.

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Diogo Antônio Feijó (1784-1843), was a Brazilian politician and Catholic priest. He was for a period the most powerful man in the Empire of Brazil and was the only regent of the empire from October 1835 to September 1837. Beside members of the Imperial family, he was the first to ever hold this position alone; the other was his appointed successor after his resignation, the Marquis of Olinda - at the time Emperor Dom Pedro II was still a minor.



Brazil, 500 reis, 1935. This coin was also issued in 1936, 1937 and 1938, but with a thicker planchet.

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Joaquim Marques Lisboa, Marquis of Tamandaré (1807-1897), was a military officer and member of the Liberal Party. Lisboa was born in Rio Grande. His long military career lasted from the Brazilian War of Independence (1822–24) to the Paraguayan War (1864–70). As the very first Brazilian native Admiral, he is regarded as the father of the Brazilian Navy. He died in Rio de Janeiro, aged 89.



Brazil, 100 reis, 1936.

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Irineu Evangelista de Sousa, Viscount of Mauá, was a Brazilian entrepreneur, industrialist, banker and politician. Born to a family of small estancieiros (ranchers), Mauá became one of the world's richest men; by 1867, his wealth was larger than the annual budget of the Brazilian Empire. He was called the Rothschild of the South American continent by the New York Times in 1871. He received the titles of baron (1854) and visconde com grandeza (viscount with greatness) (1874) of Mauá. A pioneer in several areas of the economy of Brazil, one of his greatest achievements was to start the construction of the Mauá Railroad, the first railroad in Brazil. At his peak, Mauá controlled eight of the country's ten largest companies (the remaining two were state-owned); his banking interests stretched over to Britain, France, the United States and Argentina. Mauá also founded the first bank in Uruguay (Banco Mauá Y Cia).

Mauá, who established the modern Banco do Brasil, is credited with financing much of the Brazilian economy activity in the 19th century, particularly in coffee plantation, and with the construction of the first railroads, shipyard and cast iron metalwork in the country. Mauá commissioned the first telegraphic submarine cable connecting South America to Europe, developed commercial transportation via steamboats on rivers Amazon and Guaíba, and installed the first gas-fueled street lights in the city of Rio de Janeiro, then Brazil's capital. His fortunes turned around with the decay of the Empire after the Paraguayan War, however, and, by the time he died, Mauá had lost most of his wealth.



Brazil, 200 reis, 1936.

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Antônio Carlos Gomes (1836-1896), was the first New World composer whose work was accepted by Europe. The only non-European who was successful as an opera composer in Italy, during the "golden age of opera", contemporary to Verdi and Puccini and the first composer of non-European lineage to be accepted into the Classic tradition of music.

Younger than Verdi, yet older than Puccini, Carlos Gomes achieved his first major success in a time when the Italian audiences were eager for a new name to celebrate and Puccini had not yet officially started his career. After the successful premiere of Il Guarany, Gomes was considered the most promising new composer. Verdi said his work was an expression of "true musical genius". Liszt said that "it displays dense technical maturity, full of harmonic and orchestral maturity."



Brazil, 300 reis, 1936.

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Oswaldo Cruz (1872-1917), was a Brazilian physician, bacteriologist, epidemiologist and public health officer and the founder of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute. He occupied the fifth chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters from 1912 until his death in 1917.



Brazil, 400 reis, 1936.

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Alberto Santos-Dumont (1873-1932), was a Brazilian aviation pioneer. The heir of a wealthy family of coffee producers, Santos Dumont dedicated himself to aeronautical study and experimentation in Paris, France, where he spent most of his adult life. Santos-Dumont designed, built, and flew the first practical dirigible, demonstrating that routine, controlled flight was possible. This "conquest of the air", in particular his winning the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize on 19 October 1901 on a flight that rounded the Eiffel Tower, made him one of the most famous people in the world during the early 20th century.

Following his pioneering work in airships, Santos-Dumont constructed a heavier-than-air aircraft, the 14-bis. On 23 October 1906 he flew this to make the first verified powered heavier-than-air flight, certified by the Aéro Club de France and the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI). In his homeland, Brazil, Santos-Dumont is a national hero, having his name written in Brazilian Hero Panthéon. He is credited in Brazil as the "father of flight". Santos-Dumont occupied the 38th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters from 1931 until his death in 1932.



Brazil, 5000 reis, 1936.