The Diplomatic Relations between the United States and the Portuguese Court at Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, 1808-1821
Our first diplomatic relations with Brazil were not, as in the case of the other Latin American countries, with a revolutionary junta or national government, but the Portuguese Court, which resided at Rio de Janeiro from 1808 to 1921. This transfer of the seat of government from Lisbon to the colonial capital was purely an emergency measure carried out under the pressure of the Napoleonic invasion of the Peninsula; but it constituted the final issue of a situation which had been developing in Europe for many years, and was in turn to exercise a profound influence upon the political destiny of South America. Fully comprehending the importance which had suddenly come to the hitherto isolated colony, President Jefferson availed himself of the departure for Brazil of a merchant, Henry Hill, to appoint him consul (though at his future residence in Bahia,- some three hundred miles north of the capital), and to entrust him with a personal letter to the Prince Regent, Dom Joao, welcoming him to the New Worlds.