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Rio Grande Republic, 1836-1846 (Brazil)

República Riograndense, República de Piratiny, Farroupilha Rebellion

by Jaume Ollé
First hoisted 6 November 1836

Flag of the Rio Grande Republic
Possible Variant Flag
Background on the Farroupilha Revolution
Sources

Flag of the Rio Grande Republic

This flag was the basis for the current flag of Rio Grande do Sul.
António Martins, 10 December 1999

In volume 8, pp. 345-46 of his History of the Great Revolution, Alfredo Varella relates the first hoisting of the flag of the Rio Grande Republic on 6 November 1836, in the Farrapo capital of Piratini:

The citizens of the new sovereign state, by mutual agreement, proceeded in a jubilant column to the only church in the vicinity, which was still unfinished, with a great deal of excitement and commotion. At their head marched the imposing figure of Joaquim Teixeira Nunes, major of the corps of lancers, who had the honorable duty of carrying the first flag of free Rio Grande. Like the archangel of the divine Milton, the staff almost shone after the new ensign unfurled and extended; it waves aloft as it catches the breeze, it waves and shines like a meteor in the dark heavens. The republican flag appears in public at last, the one Zambeccari designed years before, in Buenos Aires, at the behest of his Continentist friends.

Tito Livio Zambeccari was an Italian painter and Carbonaro who, after having been exiled to Spain in 1823, found his way to South America and got involved in assorted revolutions there, including the Farroupilha Revolt. The Continentists were members of a radical Masonic lodge called "El Continentino" in Buenos Aires. Besides Zambeccari, the basic design of the flag has also been attributed to one of the Farrapo leaders, a priest known as Father Francisco das Chagas, who had proposed such a tricolor with a white field on the center depicting a bullock, a cowboy in the process of tying it, and an erva-mate tree. According to this school of thought, the leaders of the revolt rejected the central emblem but accepted the plain tricolor.

In any case, the design of this flag was adopted on 12 November as the "arms" of the Rio Grande Republic. Some historians contend that this act only adopted arms, not a flag, but the terms of the decree are more appropriate to describing a flag: "The coat of arms of the Rio-Grandense state will henceforth be in the form of a square divided into three colors, arranged thus: The upper part next to the staff [haste] green, formed by an isosceles triangle whose hypotenuse will be parallel to the diagonal of the square. The center scarlet, formed by a hexagon determined by the hypotenuses of the first triangle and another of the same size, symmetrically arranged, of gold, which will form the lower part."

Whatever the intent of the decree, there can be no doubt that it was used as a flag, since several months later the following report was received at the imperial court in Rio: "The republicans have adopted a tricolor flag, green and yellow at the extremities and red in the center. We believe the green is for hope of maintaining their independence; yellow a sign of firmness and resolution in their plans; and the red a notice that they will fire on anyone who tries to tries to impede them." Other accounts say the green and yellow were intended to represent the Brazilian colors, separated by a red stripe symbolizing the blood the Farrapos are prepared to shed for their cause, while yet others ascribe to them a Masonic significance.

Although the image above shows the flag rectangular rather than square, as most historians interpret the decree on the arms. I think it's adequate nevertheless for three reasons: (1) the decree does deal with "arms" and shouldn't be presumed to be defining the ratio of the flag; (2) I'm not convinced that people in 1836 used the term "square" or quadrado with the same precision we do today--certainly U.S. documents are full of references to "square" flags meaning only that they were rectangular, i.e., with square corners, rather than tapered or swallowtailed; and (3) there are contemporary pictures of non-square Farrapo flags.
Joseph McMillan, 12 September 2002

Accoding to Flagscan 55, the flag preserved in the Museum of the Riograndense Republic has a little-known difference from later ones: the central diagonal stripe is centered between the two corners [forming a hexagon rather than a parallelogram as in the modern state flag].
Jaume Ollé, 17 September 2002

Reported Variant Flags

by Jaume Ollé

Flagscan give the colors yellow, red, and green. I don't have dates on this, nor know if it is, perhaps, a 180 degree rotation of the flag.
Jaume Ollé, 17 September 2002

The lenço farroupilha, the scarf used by the Farrapos, shows the flag green-red-yellow, reading from upper hoist to lower fly. It does appear to show the stripe centered at the corners, which is an interesting observation. The November 1836 decree on the "arms" also specifies the green is next to the staff. I think Flagscan must be mistaken on the sequence of colors, or perhaps shows the flag inverted and reversed or something.
Joseph McMillan, 17 September 2002

Klauss Erich Klein, "Bandeiras Históricas," also gives the flag the same as Flagscan, with yellow in the upper hoist and green in the lower fly.
Jaume Ollé, 21 September 2002

I would still stand by the sequence given in contemporary sources--the Farroupilha scarf, the text of the decree on the "arms," and the government report on the flag. Also, when the flag was revived as a party symbol in the 1880s and as a state flag in 1891, there still would have been living Farrapo veterans from the 1840s who would (I'd think) lodge a protest if the revived flag had the stripes in the wrong order.
Joseph McMillan, 23 September 2002

The flag shown above did not exist. A real variant, dated 1836, can be found at the website of the Movement for the Independence of the Pampa, reproduced from Alfredo Varela's book Res Avíta (1935), page 254.
"Salini," 2 October 2003

Background on the Farroupilha Revolution

The independent Rio Grande Republic wa