🇵🇹 Portuguese borders bite back

The relationship between Brazil and Portugal, spanning five centuries, is one littered with moments of irony. The most striking of all is that Brazil’s independence from the Portuguese monarchy in 1822 was declared by none other than the son of King Dom João VI himself. Dom Pedro I thus became the emperor of an independent Brazil — while still heir to the Portuguese throne (and would leave one for the other in 1831). 

In the former colony, which had already been elevated to the “United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves” in 1815, he preserved the core structures of the monarchical regime. Slavery, for instance, persisted until 1888. 

In the 21st century, history appears to have inverted itself — throwing up another moment of Brazil-Portugal irony. The descendants of those once colonized are now flocking to the land of their colonizers, only to find that the Portuguese are complaining about being “invaded.” The same country that once crossed the Atlantic to subdue indigenous populations and populate Brazil now frets about an influx of Brazilians seeking better lives in Lisbon, Porto and the Algarve…

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