Through an analysis of civic rituals in post-independence Bahia, this article examines the ways in which the state and the nation were represented and understood both by the elite and by the people in a festive space that brought together all social classes. In this way, the article addresses the larger social and political questions that a recentlyindependent society faced as it sought to represent itself publicly: race, citizenship, membership in the nation, and regional versus local loyalties. It argues that there was a popular vision of the state that escaped the script of official civic rituals and that presented an alternative reading of independence's meaning. Nevertheless, civic rituals contributed to the strengthening of both Brazilian and Bahian identities.