Frei Caneca

Joaquim da Silva Rabelo, later Frei Joaquim do Amor Divino Rabelo (August 20, 1779 – January 13, 1825), commonly known as Frei Caneca (English: Friar Mug), was a Brazilian religious leader, politician and journalist. He was involved in multiple revolts in Northeastern Brazil during the early 19th century. He acted as a main leader on the Pernambucan Revolt. As a journalist he founded and edited Typhis Pernambucano, a weekly journal used on the Confederation of the Equator.

Evaldo Cabral de Mello described him as: "The man in the history of Brazil, embodied the quintessential nativist sentiment was curiously a Lusitanian 'jus sanguinis'."

Frei Caneca was the oldest son of Portuguese parents. His father, Domingos da Silva Rabelo, was a cooper from whom he got his nickname. His mother, Francisca Maria Alexandrina de Siqueira, was the cousin of a Carmelite nun. The family resided in Recife, more precisely in Fora-de-Portas, today known as Comunidade do Pilar, built during the Dutch Brazil era.

He became a novice at the Carmo and took the Religious habit in 1796 and professed the next year (1797).

He was ordained into the Carmelite Order in 1801, with the necessary apostolic dispensation of age 22, and created the Seminário de Olinda. He was authorized to attend the courses that the Order had not offered. He attended the seminary and oratorians libraries in Recife. In 1803 he was designated to teach rhetoric and geometry at his convent. Later he taught rational and moral Philosophy.

At some point, "his interest goes beyond the walls of the cloister, as indicated by its provision in public chair geometry of Alagoas region."It remained there a short time, given the prospect of appointment to the same chair in Recife, which failed to materialize by the Pernambucan Revolt of 1817.

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