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| Neutral Municipality of the Court Município Neutro da Corte | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Neutral municipality of theEmpire of Brazil | |||||||||
| 1834–1889 | |||||||||
 Flag .png) Coat of arms | |||||||||
 Map of the Neutral Municipality in 1880 | |||||||||
| Capital | Rio de Janeiro | ||||||||
| Area | |||||||||
| • Coordinates | 22°54′S43°11′W / 22.900°S 43.183°W /-22.900; -43.183 | ||||||||
• 1872 | 1,356 km2 (524 sq mi) | ||||||||
| Population | |||||||||
• 1872 | 274,972 | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 12 August 1834 | ||||||||
| 15 November 1889 | |||||||||
| 24 February 1891 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Rio de Janeiro Niterói | ||||||||
TheNeutral Municipality (Portuguese:Município Neutro), more formally known in the imperial era as theNeutral Municipality of the Court (Município Neutro da Corte), was an administrative unit created in the Empire of Brazil, that existed in the territory corresponding to the current location of the municipality ofRio de Janeiro between August 12, 1834 (when it was proclaimed the Additional Act to theConstitution of 1824) and November 15, 1889, when the republic in Brazil wasproclaimed.[1] It only officially ceased to exist with the promulgation of the1891 Constitution in 1891.[2] Under the republican constitution, the Neutral Municipality became theFederal District.[3]
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After the transfer of the Portuguese Court to the city of Rio de Janeiro, thecaptaincy remained directly administered by the royal government, in a status differentiated from the others, whose administrations were slightly more autonomous in relation to the central power.
With theindependence of Brazil, a greater administrative autonomy that was aspired by its elite could not be reached as in the othercaptaincies, now transformed intoprovinces, since the minister of the Kingdom, a position that was practically a substitute for the one ofViceroy, was entrusted with its Rio administration.
Allied to this was that the city of Rio de Janeiro remained as the capital of theEmpire of Brazil, which caused the minister to administer the whole province using "notices", which he directed to theMunicipal chambers of cities which, at that time, were growing at a rapid pace due to the expansion and strengthening of coffee plantations in theParaíba Valley, which already surpassed the strength of sugarcane plantations in the North Fluminense region.
These differences in relation to the other administrative units of Brazil meant that, in 1834, the city of Rio de Janeiro was included in the Neutral Municipality, which remained as the capital of the empire and directly administered by the imperial government, while Rio de Janeiro had the same political-administrative organization of the others, having its capital inVila Real da Praia Grande, which the following year was renamedNictheroy (currentNiterói).
The Neutral Municipality also had a Chamber elected by the local population and would take care of the daily operations of the entity without interference from the provincial president or the Cabinet of Ministers, except for services that were subordinated to the national government. In 1889, after theproclamation of the Republic in Brazil, the city of Rio de Janeiro continued as the capital of the country, and the Neutral Municipality become theFederal District after theConstitution of 1891 took effect.
