Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná

Did You Know?

• Honório Hermeto was named after Saint Honorata.
• His father Antônio Neto Carneiro Leão was an impoverished military officer who once was arrested for insubordination.
• He married his 17-year-old first cousin Maria Henriqueta Neto on 20 May 1826.

Path to conservatism

Honório Hermeto took on the role of Minister of Justice and cabinet head on 13 September 1832, but stepped down eight months later to avoid fallout from a Minas Gerais uprising that involved one of his relatives. His rival Vasconcelos spread rumors tying him to the revolt, damaging his standing both locally and in the Chamber of Deputies. To rebuild his political base in Minas Gerais, Hermeto resigned on 14 May 1833 and secured reelection as a general deputy.

The Additional Act, passed on 12 August 1834, triggered unforeseen turmoil. By granting local self-rule, it intensified party conflicts: whichever party dominated a province could control elections, while losing factions often turned to rebellion. Hermeto and other Moderates opposed the Act, foreseeing more harm than good from its sweeping changes. When Feijó won the sole regency in early 1835, Hermeto led conservative Moderate dissidents out of the party, eager to block what he called the triumph of the traitor behind the 1832 coup attempt.

This conservative opposition drew support from coffee and sugar planters and merchants in Brazil’s southeast and northeast—powerful groups who favored the slave trade and a strong central government. Setting aside his old grudge against Vasconcelos, Hermeto forged an alliance with him. Feijó’s allies labeled this faction the Reactionary Party in 1837. It later became the Party of Order around 1843, and finally the Conservative Party by 1853.

Special missions abroad

The Courtier-Liberal alliance held sway for several years, but by 1847 Pedro II had removed Courtier Faction members from key positions. The emperor then moved against the Liberals, and from 1844 through 1848 the country saw several Liberal cabinets plagued by internal divisions. Pedro II called upon the Party of Order to form a new cabinet in September 1848. The rise of the saquaremas ensured a purge of Liberals.

The most radical Liberal faction in Pernambuco, the Partido da Praia, prepared to revolt and was crushed by February 1849. Honório Hermeto was appointed president of the province from 2 July 1849 until 8 May 1850 to pacify by restraining acts of revenge and supporting fair trials for rebels. He accepted the office eager to regain the emperor's favor and strengthen his position among party colleagues. He was disheartened by what he saw in Pernambuco, where local political bosses had only nominal affiliations with national parties and local oligarchs vied for power based on patronage and annihilation of rivals.

Conciliation cabinet

By the early 1850s, Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, known as Paraná, had restored his standing among his peers. He had sold off his uncle’s domestic slave trading operation and used that money to buy a coffee plantation in the hills between Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais in 1836. Though he strongly resisted ending the transatlantic slave trade, the Eusébio de Queirós Law banned slave imports in 1850. This did not hurt his finances; by 1852 he was very rich.

He also strengthened his social position by marrying his son Honório to a niece of Rodrigues Torres, tying his family to the planter elite of Rio de Janeiro province. Around 1853, the old Party of Order was now generally called the Conservative Party. On 6 September 1853, Emperor Pedro II summoned Paraná to the Imperial Palace in São Cristóvão and tasked him with forming a new cabinet. The two had reconciled after nearly a decade.

The emperor wanted to push his own agenda of conciliation and material improvements, aiming to reduce partisanship and boost infrastructure. Instead of a purely Conservative government, Pedro II appointed Paraná to lead a non-partisan reform administration. Paraná chose ministers with little connection to the saquaremas, including former Liberals and men more loyal to the emperor than to the party. The resulting Conciliation cabinet answered primarily to Pedro II and Paraná, not the Conservative Party, marking a departure from the old Party of Order’s Reactionary stance.