After the deportation of their third Monarch, the Brazilians settled down to enjoy the advantages of an ideal and much-exalted Republican Government; but it was not long before they encountered some sharp disillusions.  Their first President, General Don Manuel Deodoro de Fonseca, who had been mainly responsible for the expulsion of the Emperor, was installed immediately after Pedro’s departure as head of the Brazilian Government.  He began by proving that a Republic in the midst of unsettled political circumstances is, from its very nature, almost invariably more autocratic than the ordinary empire.

Fonseca, a character sufficiently striking to merit individual mention, was born at Algoas in Brazil, was educated at the military school in Rio de Janeiro, and received his commission as a Lieutenant of Artillery in 1849.  The chief feature of his military career was the prominent part he took in the war with Paraguay in 1868-1870, where he distinguished himself sufficiently to be promoted to the rank of Divisional-General.  It was not until 1881 that he became definitely known as an ardent Republican, but from that time onward he continued to be actively associated with the ultra-Liberal and Republican movement, and he was responsible for the organization of the Military Club at Rio de Janeiro, an institution which had other objects in addition to those implied by its name.

Although Fonseca was a warm personal friend of the Emperor, his activity and very obvious Republican sentiments led to his being appointed Governor of a frontier province in 1887.  This measure, of course, was adopted in order to remove him from the capital, where his influence was considered the reverse of helpful to the Imperial cause.  In 1889 he returned to Rio de Janeiro, and entered actively into the schemes of the Republican party, more especially in army circles.  In the recently established Republican League, moreover, he was the leading spirit in the movement which culminated in the overthrow of the Empire.

On November 21, 1889, the provisional Government conceded to all Brazilians who could read and write universal suffrage, and this was followed by the appointment of a Commission for the providing of a Federal Constitution.  Republican measures came quickly.  On January 10, 1890, the separation of Church and State was decreed by the provisional Government; and on June 23 of the same year the new Constitution was promulgated.

In February of 1891 General Fonseca was elected first President of the new Republic, for a four years’ term.  He was set at the head of a Government depending largely on its troops, and these found themselves suddenly possessed of a power which they had not known previously.  The new citizens of Brazil writhed uneasily under the restraints and affronts which were now for the first time put upon them; the Press was muzzled, and a tribunal established with the power of summarily trying persons suspected of being guilty of want of respect to the new order of things.