What do you think about Pedro II, emperor of Brazil?

Some people are fucked up by historians, but in my opinion, this guy is the perfect example of the opposite. He is one of the most beloved national heroes in Brazil.

For instance, he is credited for his efforts to "end slavery"... however, Brazil was literally the LAST country in the western world to abolish it. The guy actually withheld slavery as long as he could! Slavery in Brazil was as massive (if not worse) as in the US.

Let's not even talk about the fact that Brazil was a monarchy back then, when most independent American nations were becoming republics. Furthermore, Pedro II was a heir for the Portuguese empire! How does that help for the newly attained independence of Brazil?

Among other things, he completely fucked up Paraguay in a war that followed absolutely no chivalry code. Proportionally, it was the war that killed the most of a country's population in history. He kind of screwed Uruguay as well, but that was overshadowed by Paraguay.

He indebted the country to militarize it, but was not even capable of controlling it, he was taken out by a military coup eventually. He didn't even live his last days in Brazil, he returned to Europe and was eventually buried among European royals.

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Petista pls go

Slavery was maintained for so long precisely because D. Pedro had instituted a constitutional monarchy and relinquished absolute power, and this power into into the hands of the only people learned and qualified enough to actually run the country, wealthy aristocrats who didn't care for the abolition movement.

So what if it was a monarchy, does that make it automatically bad? Remaining a monarchy actually had Brazil emerge as a stable power with a clear political hierarchy and not a war-torn land like most of the rest of South America, which fell into internal conflict between the various freed states as well as civil war inside those states. Brazil meanwhile was mostly peaceful except for a few small rebellions and Guerra dos Farrapos. Also, a political union between Brazil and Portugal, where both states were united into a single polity and not merely a case of Portugal ruling over Brazil would have been beneficial to both parties.

I will not deny that there were excesses in Paraguay, but Paraguay at the time was the North Korea of the 1800s, and they started a war for absolutely no reason against our neighbors. If we had done nothing and Paraguay had won, we would have been their next target.

He was usurped by a traitor who openly followed positivism that described the best form of government as a dictatorship. Under Deodoro the nation was much less free and democratic than it had been as a monarchy, and the republican leaders of that early period were absolutely unfit for governing, and we are still reeling from the instability they caused by deposing the Emperor. And the only reason he didn't live the rest of his life in Brazil was because he didn't want to plunge the country into civil war, and because he honestly thought that republicanism would be best for his country, and because of that you could certainly say that he was a fool who doomed us all.

Paraguay had already invaded Brazil, in fact.

Vete a tu cama, Francisco Solano Lopez.

Calling a historical figure with honorifics says a lot about your level of bias.

Do you think it is okay then for a country to prosper through the biggest Native genocide in history, inhuman treatment of slaves in one of the biggest transatlantic trades and by obliterating a country?

And no, while I certainly don't find it "okay" this would be judging him, and any contemporary, by 2016 standards. Values and cultures change over time, doing such things today would be terrible, but in his time it was the norm. The treatment of the natives and the African slaves was disgusting, but you yourself seem to have a bias towards these people just because they were oppressed, which, again, I'm not saying was a good thing. Just, consider for a moment that those Natives and those Africans waged wars, slaughtered people, sacked cities and took slaves too. This is how human society has functioned for all of its history. Tribe A waged war on Tribe B, won, and took all their things for the betterment of their tribe, then Tribe C came, waged war against Tribe B, won, and took their things for their own benefit, and so on and so on until the European came and defeated Tribe #5426 and took their things for their own benefit. After all, like the Natives fought between themselves, so did the Europeans, and when they stumbled upon the Americas and met the people there, why would they possibly think to treat those people any different?

What would you expect from the European when he came to America and Africa? That they take a Prime Directive approach and all agree to not disturb these primitive beings in their habitats like animals? Do you believe that there were absolutely no Natives or Africans who attacked or wanted to attack Europeans unprovoked to take their cool things? This is perfectly natural human behavior, why are only Europeans vilified for it? Up until about 1300, Europe was an irrelevant backwater, until something happened to elevate the people there above their Muslim and Mongol neighbors who were invading their lands. Were they supposed to do nothing about this? In the competition of life, Euros won, and now their declining, and China is gaining primacy again. And that's just the way things are.

Might be a bit racist now, but as a white person, I just can't help but laughing out loud when I hear "Emperor Pedro".

You have a very superficial understanding of history and are comparing things that have a very different magnitude. There were millions of slaves shipped to America and millions of natives killed. How does that compare to a few fights among African tribes? The only thing worse than colonization was WW1 and WW2... which was an European thing again. But well, the natives from America and Africans are barbarians anyway apparently.

Furthermore, you seem hold the false belief that the past was "just cruel" and that everything was acceptable... Even in the Bible, 2000 years ago there were rules on how to deal with war and slavery in the most humane way possible. The world kept developing these ideals, hell, the first Geneva convention was made already in the 19th century.

Studying things in context, many countries were more humane than Brazil during Pedro II reign. Brazil was a relatively civilized and rich country by then, it was not a land of savages. It literally had no excuse to allow the things that happened there. For all the shit the US get in this board, we have to admit that Brazil did worse in every single sense.

...

Pedro II was White.

You mean "as an American".