The provinces of Brazil were the primary subdivisions of the country during the period of the Empire of Brazil (1822 – 1889).
On February 28, 1821, the provinces were established in the Kingdom of Brazil (then part of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves), superseding the captaincies that were in place at the time.
The Confederation of the Equator (Portuguese: Confederação do Equador) was a short-lived rebellion that occurred in the northeastern region of the Empire of Brazil in 1824, in the early years of the country's independence from Portugal. The secessionist movement was led by liberals who opposed the authoritarian and centralist policies of the nation's first leader, Emperor Pedro I. The fight occurred in the provinces of Pernambuco, Ceará and Paraíba.
The Ragamuffin War, also known as the Ragamuffin Revolution or Heroic Decade, was a republican uprising that began in southern Brazil, in the province (current state) of Rio Grande do Sul in 1835. The rebels were led by Generals Bento Gonçalves da Silva and Antônio de Sousa Neto with the support of the Italian fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi. The war ended with an agreement between the two sides, known as the Treaty of Ponche Verde, in 1845.
Over time, the revolution acquired a separatist character and influenced separatist movements throughout the entire country such as the Liberal Rebellions in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais in 1842, and the Sabinada in Bahia in 1837.
The Juliana Republic (Portuguese: República Juliana) or the Catarinense Republic (República Catarinense), fully and officially the Free and Independent Catarinense Republic (República Catarinense Livre e Independente), was a revolutionary state that existed between 29 July and 15 November 1839, in the province of Santa Catarina of the Empire of Brazil. The Republic was proclaimed in an extension of the Ragamuffin War started in the neighboring province of Rio Grande do Sul, where the Rio-Grandense Republic had already been created.
Forces of the revolutionary Riograndense Republic, led by General David Canabarro and Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, with help from the local population, conquered the harbor city of Laguna on 22 July 1839, in a battle known as the Capture of Laguna. The Catarinense Republic was then proclaimed on 29 July, at the city's municipal chamber. Canabarro assumed temporarily the office of president until an electoral college was assembled and elections were held on 7 August. For president and vice president were elected, respectively, Joaquim Xavier Neves, a Lieutenant-colonel of the National Guard of São José, and his uncle, the priest Vicente Ferreira dos Santos Cordeiro, who assumed the presidential office due to a blockade by the Imperial Army that prevented Joaquim Xavier Neves from reaching Laguna.
The Ragamuffin War (Portuguese: Guerra dos Farrapos), also known as the Ragamuffin Revolution or Heroic Decade, was a republican uprising that began in southern Brazil during the regency period, centered in the province of Rio Grande do Sul and, for a time, extending into neighboring Santa Catarina. It began on 20 September 1835, when rebel forces seized Porto Alegre, and soon turned into a wider confrontation between Brazil's imperial government and an opposition coalition led by influential regional leaders, such as Bento Gonçalves and Antônio de Sousa Neto, who proclaimed the secession of the province and the creation of the Riograndense Republic following the rebel victory at the battle of Seival in 1836.
The war is often situated within the broader political and institutional instability of Brazil's regency era, when numerous armed conflicts exposed the fragility of imperial authority and intensified disputes over the degree of autonomy between the Court and Brazil's provinces. In Rio Grande do Sul, the tensions unfolded over the region's economy, reliant on livestock and the production of jerked beef. Producers in Rio Grande do Sul complained that local jerked beef was burdened by high export and customs taxation and by import duties on salt, while Uruguay and Argentina benefited from more favorable tax treatment in Brazilian markets, making the local product less competitive within the country, which led to economic grievances with the Imperial government, but also due to a broader desire for greater autonomy and opposition to centralized control over the province. The revolution also influenced other rebel movements throughout the country, such as the Sabinada, in Bahia, in 1837, and the Liberal Rebellions in Minas Gerais and São Paulo, in 1842.
São Paulo Province was one of the provinces of Brazil.