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Then suddenly in 1820 revolution broke out in Portugal, the start of a long struggle between constitutional liberalism and royal absolutism exacerbated by Braganza feuds. The king agonized, before finally agreeing to return home, leaving the twenty-two-year-old Pedro as regent of Brazil. In Rio, the crowds shouted, ‘Let the people rule Brazil!’ and demanded that João embrace a liberal constitution yet remain in America. Pedro ordered his troops to shoot into the crowds. In April 1821, as he departed for Lisbon after thirteen years away, King João awkwardly told him, ‘Pedro, if Brazil breaks away, better it be by your hand, with the respect you have for me, than by the hand of one of these adventurers.’ Strangely the Brazilian revolution was now led by Pedro. When the Cariola crowds demanded he remain, he declared, ‘Tell the people, I stay.’

In August 1822, Regent Pedro visited São Paulo. Pedro had vacillated between independence and loyalty to his father, writing warm letters to him, telling him about his grandchildren and boasting about his sexual exploits with Carioca girls. Enduring his brutish behaviour, Leopoldina also pushed him towards independence. Toying with the idea, Pedro travelled through the provinces, winning support for himself and statehood, while enjoying the girls procured by his pandering secretary, ‘Fruity’ Gomes.

Near São Paolo, he ‘happened’ to encounter a litter borne by two slaves that contained Domitila de Castro, a beauty married to a provincial bully and sister of one of his courtiers. Dazzled, he dismounted, praised her and then insisted on bearing her litter himself.

‘How strong you are, Your Majesty,’ said Domitila.

‘Never again,’ he said, ‘will you be attended by little negroes like this.’

When he headed back to Rio, Domitila joined him in the great affair – selfish, passionate, destructive – of Brazilian history. The political pressure was rising. Out riding, he was just suffering a spasm of diarrhoea when he was handed a letter from Rio: Portugal was preparing to reconquer Brazil, just as Brazilian aristocrats were demanding full independence. There was not much of a choice, since he faced arrest if he resisted. Between spasms of dysentery, at a river called Ipiranga, he tore off the colours of Portugal, throwing his hat to the ground, drawing his sword and crying, ‘The time has come. Independence or death. We’ve separated from Portugal.’

In October 1822, Pedro was declared emperor of Brazil. ‘From Portugal we want nothing, absolutely nothing,’ Pedro wrote to his father. ‘Brazilian independence triumphs … or we die defending it.’ At his coronation on 1 December, Emperor Pedro fused Habsburg, Braganza and Amerindian themes, dressed in a green silk tunic, spurred boots and a green and yellow cloak made of toucan feathers. But his was not the first American monarchy.

QUEEN MARIE LOUISE OF HAITI AND THE GRAND LORD OF PARAGUAY: DR FRANCIA’S RACIAL EXPERIMENT

In Haiti, the visionary King Henry still ruled his northern kingdom; in the south, Bolívar’s ally ‘Papa Bon Coeur’ Pétion died, leaving power to his ally, Boyer, son of a French tailor and an enslaved Kongo woman.

In October 1820, Boyer orchestrated a coup against Henry. The king, autocratic and unpopular, suffered a stroke at Palais Sans-Souci and on 8 October shot himself with a golden bullet. He was swiftly buried up at his Citadelle. His heir, the sixteen-year-old prince royal, Victor Henry, was bayoneted; baron de Vastey was stabbed, then hurled down a well. Boyer, advised by his paramour Marie-Madeleine Lachenais, La Présidente de Deux Présidents, united north and south, then annexed Spanish Santo Domingo and welcomed 6,000 free African-Americans as colonists, an experiment that failed: 2,000 of them soon returned home.^* Yet France still claimed Haiti.

Haiti was not the only new state pioneering a post-slavery society.

Paraguay was trying a racial experiment unique to the continent, though ultimately with catastrophic consequences.

In October 1820, as Bolívar was conquering the continent and King Henry was facing mutiny, a studious and frugal doctor of theology, José Gaspar de Francia, who had become first a teacher then a lawyer, discovered a plot to assassinate him. The fifty-four-year-old had recently declared himself supreme dictator of a new state named Paraguay. Now he ordered his secret police, the Pyraguës (Hairy Feet), to arrest all the plotters and virtually everyone who was either educated or had played any political role. They were to be tortured in the Chamber of Truth and then killed. Since he prided himself on his husbandry, each executioner was permitted one bullet. Francia watched the killings sitting on a stool under an orange tree outside his palace. Beneath the death lists, Francia wrote unironically: ‘Pax Francia’.