Last modified: 2004-01-24 by joe mcmillan
Keywords: provinces | merchant marine | registration |
Links: FOTW homepage |
search |
disclaimer and copyright |
write us |
mirrors
During the Empire the Brazilian provinces did not have flags. Only after
the Republic was proclaimed and the provinces turned into states were they
allowed to have flags. In fact, many of the state flags have some relation
to regional republican uprisings during the Empire.
Vantuyl Barbosa, 21 January 1998
Some months ago I read in Clóvis Ribeiro that the provinces of the Empire had their own flags, but that these flags were not used in the provinces themselves. The flags just signified the origin of the ships coming to the port of Rio de Janeiro. But I found a document of the Government of Rio Grande do Sul justifying the reintroduction of the state flag (the document is from the 1930s) saying that even the imperial provinces had their own flags, used in the provinces as regional symbols, and referring to the Carlos Piquet Collection as proof. Well, this collection of flags is in the Brazilian Historical Museum, and there I found--yes, in the register--Bandeiras Provinciais do Império (Provincial Flags of the Empire). The museum staff member, Ms. Ana Maria, said that almost all the flags in the collection had been destroyd by time, including the flags of the provinces. She told me that the flags had been very simple (according to her memory). So I had a feeling that the [merchant ship registration] pennants showed on the Flags of the World pages on the Brazilian states were indeed, in other propo