"O primeiro motor da independência": José Joaquim da Rocha e a experiência do constitucionalismo no Brasil

Abstract

This study aims to reconstruct and problematize the period in which José Joaquim da Rocha, Captain Ordinances and lawyer from Minas Gerais elected to the Cortes of Lisbon, emerge on the public scene as an important articulator and political figure of the independence of Brazil. The main question that guides this work is: how this individual builds a political reputation in a context marked buy the ideas and values of constitutionalism. We believe that the image of the "first independence engine", attributed to him by Araújo Porto Alegre, corresponds to the role he has played over the years of 1820-1822, when, given the gaps opened by the process of reconfiguration and redesign of the old positions of power, Joaquim Rocha learned to operate with new tools, vocabulary and emerging political culture, due to constitutional claims. In this sense, our research follows his trajectory in the Court of Rio de Janeiro, participation at key events such as the episode called The Fico, and their conceptions of constitution and constitutionalism, in an attempt to rebuild this dynamic of expansion and reinvention of political action space in this new environment.