Monarchies in the Americas: We Were Royalty and Such.

[Etelfrido]

A well-deserved We wuz moment for New Worlders. In order not to make it too long I'll touch only on modern era monarchies in the European style, at least for now.

HAITI (First Empire of Haiti 1804 - 1806; Kingdom of Haiti 1811 - 1820; Second Empire of Haiti 1849 - 1859)

The entire island of Hispaniola was first claimed on 5 December 1492, by Christopher Columbus, for Queen Isabella, and the first Viceroy of the Americas was established along with a number of colonies throughout the Island. With the later discovery of Mexico and Peru many of the early settlers left for the main land, but some twelve cities and a hundred thousand souls remained, mainly in the Eastern part of the Island. Through the Treaty of Riswick in 1697, King Louis XIV received the western third of the Island from Spain as retribution and formalized the first French pirate settlement in existence since the mid-1600s,[46] with the colony administered by a governor-general representing the French crown,[47] an arrangement that stood until the French Revolution toppled the monarchy of France on 21 September 1792. Though the French government retained control over the region of Saint-Domingue, on 22 September 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who had served as Governor-General of Saint-Domingue since 30 November 1803, declared himself as head of an independent Empire of Haiti, with his coronation as Emperor Jacques I taking place on 6 October that year.

Emperor Jacques I


Flag of the First Empire of Haiti

After his assassination on 17 October 1806, the country was split in half, the northern portion eventually becoming the Kingdom of Haiti on 28 March 1811, with Henri Christophe installed as King Henri I.[48]

Henri I


Flag of the Kingdom of Haiti 1811 - 1814


Flag of the Kingdom of Haiti 1814 - 1820

When King Henri committed suicide on 8 October 1820, and his son, Jacques-Victor Henry, Prince Royal of Haiti, was murdered by revolutionaries ten days later, the kingdom was merged into the southern Republic of Haiti, of which Faustin-Élie Soulouque was elected president on 2 March 1847. Two years later, on 26 August 1849, the Haitian national assembly declared the president as Emperor Faustin I, thereby re-establishing the Empire of Haiti. But this monarchical reincarnation was to be short lived as well, as a revolution broke out in the empire in 1858, resulting in Faustin abdicating the throne on 18 January 1859.

Faustin I


Flag of the Second Empire of Haiti

Faustin I tried unsuccessfully to create a Haitian nobility with traditional royal titles, but he did institute four monarchical orders designed to promote loyalty to himself within the country’s military and elite families. These orders are extremely rare.

MEXICO (First Mexican Empire 1821 - 1823; Second Mexican Empire 1864 - 1867)

With the victory of the Mexicans over the Spanish imperial army in 1821, the Viceroyalty of New Spain came to a conclusion. The newly independent Mexican Congress still desired that King Ferdinand VII, or another member of the House of Bourbon, agree to be installed as Emperor of Mexico, thereby forming a type of personal union with Spain. The Spanish monarchy, however, refused to recognise the new state, and decreed that it would allow no other European prince to take the throne of Mexico. Thus, the Mexican Agustín de Iturbide was crowned as Augustine I on 19 May 1822, with an official decree of confirmation issued two days following. Only a few months later, Augustine dissolved a factious congress, thereby prompting an enraged Antonio López de Santa Anna to mount a coup, which led to the declaration of a republic on 1 December 1822. In order to end the unrest, Augustine abdicated on 19 March 1823 and left the country, and the Mexican monarchy was abolished. After hearing that the situation in Mexico had only grown worse since his abdication, Iturbide returned from England on 11 May 1824, but was detained upon setting foot in Mexico and, without trial, was executed.[53]

[...] In 1805, when he was twenty-two, Iturbide married Doña Ana María Josefa Ramona de Huarte y Muñiz, member of the House of Tagle of the family of the Marquises of Altamira.[5][8]

Agustín I


Flag of the First Mexican Empire

Archduke Maximilian of Austria, brother of the Emperor of Austria, and descendant of the prior Habsburg rulers of Mexico as New Spain, was elected Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico by the Assembly of Notables in Mexico City, thereby re-establishing the Mexican monarchy.

The year before, Benito Juárez, the republican President of Mexico, suspended all repayments on Mexico's foreign debts (save those owed to the United States), leading France, the United Kingdom, and Spain to send a joint expeditionary force that took Veracruz in December 1861. Juárez then repaid the debts, after which British and Spanish troops withdrew, but Emperor Napoleon III of France and Mexican monarchists used the opportunity to overthrow the republic and install a Mexican monarch friendly to the interests of France and the Mexican nobility.

The new Mexican emperor ultimately did not bow to Napoleon's wishes, leading the latter to withdraw the majority of his influence from Mexico. Regardless, Maximilian was still viewed as a French puppet by the liberals. As well, at the end of the American Civil War, US troops moved to the Mexico-US border as part of a planned invasion, seeing the establishment of the Second Mexican Empire as an infringement on their Monroe Doctrine, even though it was a Mexican scheme and was considered an endemic Mexican monarchy. Backed by the Americans, ex-president Juárez mobilised to retake power, and defeated Maximilian at Querétaro on 15 May 1867. The Emperor was arraigned before a military tribunal, sentenced to death, and executed at the Cerro de las Campanas on 19 June 1867.[54]

Maximilian's wife and empress consort of Mexico was the Belgian princess Charlotte of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, known in Mexico as "Carlota".

Maximilian I


Imperial Standard of the Second Mexican Empire

BRAZIL (1822 -1889)

Flag of Empire of Brazil

A colony of the Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil became the seat of the Portuguese Empire in 1808, when the Portuguese Prince regent, later King Dom John VI, fled from Napoleon's invasion of Portugal and established himself and his government in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. John VI later returned to Portugal, leaving his eldest son and heir-apparent, Pedro, to rule the Kingdom of Brazil as regent. On 7 September 1822, Pedro declared the independence of Brazil and, after waging a successful war against his father's kingdom, was acclaimed on 12 October as Pedro I, the first Emperor of Brazil.

[...] In 1826, despite his role in Brazilian independence, he became the king of Portugal; he abdicated the Portuguese throne in favor of his eldest daughter. Two years later, she was usurped by Pedro I's younger brother Miguel. Unable to deal with both Brazilian and Portuguese affairs, Pedro I abdicated his Brazilian throne on 7 April 1831 and immediately departed for Europe to restore his daughter to the Portuguese throne.

Pedro I

Pedro I's successor in Brazil was his five-year-old son, Pedro II. As the latter was still a minor, a weak regency was created. The power vacuum resulting from the absence of a ruling monarch as the ultimate arbiter in political disputes led to regional civil wars between local factions. Having inherited an empire on the verge of disintegration, Pedro II, once he was legally declared of age, managed to bring peace and stability to the country, which eventually became an emerging international power.

Even though the last four decades of Pedro II's reign were marked by continuous internal peace and economic prosperity, he had no expectation to see the monarchy survive beyond his lifetime and made no effort to maintain support for the institution. The next in line to the throne was his daughter Isabel, but neither Pedro II nor the ruling classes considered a female monarch married to a foreigner acceptable.[4][5] The seeming indifference of the monarch and his heiress regarding the future of the regime and decades of political stability led part of the new political class, influenced by American republicanism and positivism, to see no reason to defend the monarchy.[6] After a 58-year reign, on 15 November 1889, the Emperor was overthrown in a sudden coup d'état led by a clique of military leaders whose goal was the formation of a republic headed by a military dictator, forming the "Republic of the Sword [pt]".

Dona Maria Leopoldina of Austria (22 January 1797 – 11 December 1826) was the first Empress of Brazil as the wife of Emperor Dom Pedro I from 12 October 1822 until her death.

Pedro II

The Brazilian government secured the hand of Princess Teresa Cristina of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. She and Pedro II were married by proxy in Naples on 30 May 1843.[40]

There are two pretenders to the defunct Brazilian throne: Bertrand of Orléans-Braganza, head of the Vassouras branch of the Brazilian Imperial Family, and, according to legitimist claims, de jure Emperor of Brazil; and Prince Pedro Carlos of Orléans-Braganza, head of the Petrópolis line of the Brazilian Imperial Family, and heir to the Brazilian throne according to royalists.[45]

The Brazilian constitution of 1988 called for a general vote on the restoration of the monarchy, which was held in 1993. The royalists went to the polls divided, with the press indicating there were actually two princes aspiring to the Brazilian throne (Dom Luiz de Orleans e Bragança and Dom João Henrique); this created some confusion among the voters.

Interestingly, the Brazilian and Mexican Monarchies almost became united:

Maximilian embarked on the corvette Vulkan, for a brief cruise through Greece. In October 1850, he became a navy lieutenant. At the beginning of 1851, he embarked on another much more distant cruise on board the SMS Novara. He enjoyed that voyage so much that he anticipated in his diary “I shall fulfill one of my most beloved dreams, a voyage by sea. I depart with my memories of my beloved Austrian homeland in a very emotional moment for me.“[30]

This voyage took him to Lisbon, where he met the princess Maria Amélia of Braganza, daughter of the late Brazilian Emperor Pedro I. She was described as beautiful, pious, clever, and of a refined education.[31] The pair fell in love. His brother Franz Joseph and his mother approved of a prospective marriage between them. Unfortunately, in February 1852, Maria Amélia contracted scarlet fever. Her health worsened over the months, developing tuberculosis. Her doctors advised her to leave Lisbon and go to Madeira, where she arrived in August 1852. At the end of November, she had lost hope of ever recovering her health. [32] Maria Amélia died on February 4, 1853, which deeply shocked Maximilian. [33][34]

Do you have anything to add on the subject?

[Etelfrido]

Pedro II, Auguste Mariette, and others in Egypt.



We really were.