The Revolutions Adopt their Own Peculiar Dialect: The Meanings of Brazilian Independence in a Border Region (Cisplatine Province, 1821-1824)

ABSTRACT This article discusses the uses and meanings of the concept of independence during the process of rupture between Brazil and Portugal. I emphasize the different political projects and conflicts that emerged as a result of the separation between Brazil and Portugal and the plurality of alternatives and identities between 1821 and 1824. I relate this perspective to the debates in the press of the Cisplatina Province, the questioning about the events in other Brazilian provinces, and the mobilization of examples from the United States of America and the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata. Thus, I argue that this vocabulary, its transformations and innovations helped insert Cisplatina into Brazilian politics and the transformations of modernity.