ABSTRACT
This article discusses the economic conditions that dictated the end of the exclusive colonial regime that characterized the relationship between Portugal and Brazil until 1808, the year in which the opening of Brazilian ports to international trade was decreed. Such conditions help to understand the impossibility of rebuilding the empire after the liberal revolution of 1820, as clearly perceived by some deputies to the Constituent Courts. The mirage of an impractical recolonization represented, however, an important stimulus for the construction of the political independence of the Brazilian nation.
Keywords:
colonial pact; economic freedom; liberal revolution; recolonization; political independence