For seven years, a European empire was ruled from its own colony in Rio
Fleeing Napoleon's armies in 1808, Portugal's royal court sailed to Brazil and liked it there. Rather than go home, the prince regent promoted the colony to a kingdom in 1815, and the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves became one state spread across three kingdoms and an ocean.
The prince regent, later King John VI, arrived in Brazil with his incapacitated mother, Queen Maria I, and the whole court. When Napoleon fell in 1815, critics in Lisbon insisted Portugal should not be governed from a colony. John, who enjoyed Rio de Janeiro, where the monarchy was popular and he had more freedom, found a neat answer: a law of 16 December 1815 raised Brazil to a kingdom and fused it with Portugal and the Algarves, the historic name for today's southern Algarve region. Brazilian courtiers and nationalists welcomed the change, because it turned them from colonials into equal subjects.
The new state was not the whole empire but its transatlantic core, controlling Portugal's possessions in Africa and Asia. Royal titles changed to match, a new flag and coat of arms were adopted, and in 1817 the heir's old title, Prince of Brazil, gave way to Prince Royal. Maria died in Rio on 20 March 1816, and John's acclamation there finally took place on 6 February 1818, when he founded a new knighthood honouring the Immaculate Conception of Vila Viçosa; no other chivalric order was created in the union's lifetime.
The arrangement began to unravel after Portugal's Liberal Revolution of 1820. John sailed back and reached Lisbon on 4 July 1821, leaving his son Pedro behind as Regent of Brazil with broad powers, which kept the Brazilian provinces united under a government in Rio. The constitutional assembly in Lisbon, however, was mostly Portuguese, its Brazilian delegates arrived late and were outnumbered, and some were harassed in the streets. Its draft constitution spoke of a Portuguese nation spanning both hemispheres and contained provisions that threatened the central government in Rio.
Brazilian nationalists saw divide and conquer, fearing their provinces would answer to Lisbon one by one and Brazil would slip back into colonial status. In 1822 Brazil declared independence, ending the union in practice. Portugal accepted the outcome formally in 1825 by recognising the Empire of Brazil.
Source: United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves
