Last modified: 2010-11-27 by ian macdonald
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During the Empire the Brazilian provinces did not have flags. Only after
the Republic was proclaimed and the provinces turned into states were they
allowed to have flags. In fact, many of the state flags have some relation
to regional republican uprisings during the Empire.
Vantuyl Barbosa, 21 January 1998
Some months ago I read in Clóvis Ribeiro that the provinces of the Empire had their own flags, but that these flags were not used in the provinces themselves. The flags just signified the origin of the ships coming to the port of Rio de Janeiro. But I found a document of the Government of Rio Grande do Sul justifying the reintroduction of the state flag (the document is from the 1930s) saying that even the imperial provinces had their own flags, used in the provinces as regional symbols, and referring to the Carlos Piquet Collection as proof. Well, this collection of flags is in the Brazilian Historical Museum, and there I found--yes, in the register--Bandeiras Provinciais do Império (Provincial Flags of the Empire). The museum staff member, Ms. Ana Maria, said that almost all the flags in the collection had been destroyd by time, including the flags of the provinces. She told me that the flags had been very simple (according to her memory). So I had a feeling that the [merchant ship registration] pennants showed on the Flags of the World pages on the Brazilian states were indeed, in other proportions, also the symbols of the Brazilian provinces. So let's see:
The French Navy's Album de Pavillons of 1858 shows a set
of galhardetes
(normally translated pennants) flown by Brazilian merchant ships to indicate their province of origin.
The galhardetes were rectangular, approximately 1:6. They were all simple geometric
patterns, more or less like signal flags.
Joseph McMillan, 17 April 2001
These flags look very similar to the "registration flags"
used in France, Spain, and
Mexico at the same period.
The French arrondissement flags are
sometimes erroneously presented as provincial or local flags, especially
those used for the ships registered in the colonies.
The equivalent Spanish flags have been indeed the source
of modern provincial flags. All these flags have rather simple geometrical design, most probably
because they should be identified from far away and in bad weather
conditions. The Brazilian flags are also fairly simple.
Ivan Sache, 13 May 2003
