Frei Caneca

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Execution of Joaquim do Amor Divino Rabelo e Caneca

Joaquim do Amor Divino Rabelo e Caneca (Recife, July 1779 — Recife, January 13, 1825), better known as Frei Caneca, was a Brazilian religious and intellectual mentor. He was involved in both the 1817 Pernambucan Revolt as well a leader of the short lived Confederation of the Equator.

[edit] Biography

Caneca was born to a Portuguese father, and became a friar of the Carmelite order in 1799.

Caneca grew to become a firm believer in liberalism, shared ideas of a Brazilian republic, and frequented the Academia do Paraíso (Academy of Paradise), one of the meeting places for thinkers influenced by the French Revolution and the American War of Independence. He participated actively in the Pernambucan Revolution, which proclaimed a republic and organized the first independent Brazilian government. After the downfall of the movement, he was encarcerated in Bahia, but was released in 1821. He reassumed his political thinking, and in 1824, he took part in league with Cipriano Barata as a leader of the failed Confederation of the Equator. After the short lived republic's fall to the forces of Thomas Cochrane, he fled to the district of Abreu e Lima and later to, Ceará. After being captured by Imperial troops on December 18, he was taken to Recife, and sentenced to death after having a military trial led by Francisco de Lima e Silva. His execution is notably in that three soldiers refused to hang him. He was then handed over to a firing squad and executed under the command of the same officer.