Brazilian War of Independence

When Pedro, the Portuguese prince regent, declared Brazil independent in September 1822, Portuguese garrisons still held Bahia, Maranhão, Pará and Montevideo, and could be supplied by sea. The new empire took over the Portuguese ships left at Rio, and in March 1823 hired Lord Cochrane, fresh from Chile, as its first admiral. Many of his sailors were Portuguese-born and would not fight their countrymen, and his first battle off Bahia on 4 May came to nothing. But his blockade starved Salvador, and on 2 July the Portuguese army sailed home in a great convoy, harried across the Atlantic by his ships. Cochrane then bluffed Maranhão into surrender, and his officer John Pascoe Grenfell did the same at Belém. By 1824 the last Portuguese troops had left, and Portugal recognised Brazil's independence in 1825.