These bozos?
Pernambuco was always revolting for one reason or the other, chiefly in
1817,
1824,
1832,
1833 and
1848-1852.
Pernambuco had always been the most Liberal and Republican province in Brazil, basically because: a) Since the times of the Dutch invasion Recife was the Brazilian city where traders and merchants had indeed more power than the landowners. They even managed to defeat them in a civil war and gain political control in the early 18th century (see the
Mascate War); b) after John VI oppened the Brazilian commerce to foreign trade in 1808 there was there a large group of merchants and farmers (who planted cotton instead of sugarcane) who had more profits making business with the UK and the USA then with Lisbon, and they were becoming heavily influenced by the more liberal (and Republican, in the case of the USA) political systems of these countries.
Besides Pernambuco, other Northern Provinces revolted in the early Empire: Pará (
Cabanagem), Maranhão (
Balaiada), Bahia (
Federação do Guanais,
Sabinada). The problem for their failures were similar to those of Pernambuco: a) Their military strenght couldn't match the Imperial one; b) most of the officers belonged to aristocratical families who supported the monarchy, so they didn't have efficient leadership; c) most of the landowners didn't support them, and even when they did they had the habit of changing sides whenever they thought that the turmoil could mean that their slaves would be freed; d) exactly in order to attract the landwoners they didn't promise freedom to the slaves, an action that could have given them more manpower.
Had even less of a chance that the Gaucho Rio-grandese separatism as far as I know
Frankly, personally I think that even our Southern rebellion didn't have many chances. Ok, we had one advantage, that was the fact that our rebell leaders were indeed military commanders with experience in real wars (nearly all them fought against the Argentines in the war of 1825-1828). But reason why the conflict lasted for ten years (1835-1845) was because the Empire had bigger problems to solve in the North. There was the Cabanagem in Pará (1835-1840), the Balaiada in Maranhão (1838-1841), the Sabinada in Bahia (1837-1838) and Liberal Rebellions even in São Paulo and Minas Gerais in 1842. Two of them even managed to take the power of their provinces (Pará and Bahia).
So, while most of the army was fighting the Northern rebellions, in the South the Empire was dependent on local caudillos who stayed loyal to the central government or switched sides whenever it was better for them. Just after 1842 the Empire could actually send bigger forces, and this made the rebells soon find a way to make peace. But during the war the Farrapos were not able to conquer the capital of the Province (Porto Alegre) - except for a period of 9 month in the start of the war - neither our only port (Rio Grande) nor the richest and most economically important city (Pelotas). It's actually almost a miracle the fact they managed to keep the war for an entire decade.
