Transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil

The transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil refers to the escape of the Queen Maria I of Portugal, Braganza royal family and its court of nearly 15,000 people from Lisbon on November 29, 1807. The Braganza royal family departed for the Portuguese colony of Brazil just days before Napoleonic forces invaded Lisbon on December 1. The Portuguese crown remained in Brazil from 1808 until the Liberal Revolution of 1820 led to the return of John VI of Portugal on April 26, 1821. For thirteen years, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, functioned as the capital of the Kingdom of Portugal in what some historians call a "metropolitan reversal" (i.e., a colony exercising governance over the entirety of the Portuguese empire.)

In 1807, at the outset of the Peninsular War, Napoleonic forces invaded Portugal due to the Portuguese alliance with the United Kingdom. The prince regent of Portugal at the time, John VI, had formally governed the country on behalf of Maria I of Portugal since 1799. Anticipating the invasion of Napoleon's army, John VI ordered the transfer of the Portuguese royal court to Brazil before he could be deposed. Setting sail for Brazil on November 29, the royal party navigated under the protection of the British Royal Navy, and 8 ships of the line, 5 frigates, and 4 smaller vessels of the Portuguese Navy, under the command of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith. On December 5, almost halfway between Lisbon and Madeira, Sidney Smith, along with Britain's envoy to Lisbon, Lord Strangford, returned to Europe with part of the British flotilla. Graham Moore, a British sailor and career officer in the Royal Navy, continued escorting the Portuguese royal family to Brazil with the ships Marlborough, London, Bedford, and Monarch.

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