José Silvestre Rebello

José Silvestre Rebello was a merchant born in Portugal and writer who joined the political project of Brazilian independence. Before becoming a diplomat, he published Comércio oriental, a guide to trade across Asian ports, in 1820 and became a judge on the Anglo-Portuguese mixed commission dealing with captured slave ships in 1821. Under the pseudonym Tresgeminos Cosmopolitas he wrote political pamphlets, including an imagined aerial survey of Brazil addressed to a woman. In 1822 he helped establish the Sociedade Philotechnica with José Bonifácio and the Count of Palma. ¹

Appointed to Washington in January 1824, Rebello landed at Baltimore in March and cultivated American political and intellectual contacts while seeking recognition for the new empire. President James Monroe received his credentials on 26 May 1824, establishing diplomatic relations. Rebello’s mission also organized the new legation and a network of consular representatives. His correspondence described American institutions and political society for a government still consolidating its independence. ^{2, 5}

Naval procurement became a substantial and contentious part of his assignment. In January 1825 he contracted with Henry Eckford’s Life & Fire Insurance Company for two frigates, built at New York and Baltimore. Questions over the commission he retained led the Brazilian Treasury to demand supporting documents and repayment. His salary was suspended, and after his return the opposition press publicized the dispute. Historian Abner Neemias da Cruz found evidence of judicial proceedings and an auction of attached property, but did not establish the case’s final outcome.. ²

Rebello left the United States in 1829 and did not take up the Colombian mission to which he had been appointed. Back in Rio he remained involved in learned societies and became a founding member of the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute. His 1839 Discurso sobre a palavra Brazil connected the country’s identity with commerce. He died in 1844; the exact year of his birth remains uncertain in the sources. ^{2, 1, 4, 3}