PEDRO II, BRAZIL'S LAST EMPEROR

Exceptional destinies

An episode from the series SECRETS OF HISTORY - PORTRAITS

Synopsis

In 1831, while democracies flourished everywhere else in South America, 6-year-old Pedro II ascended to the most exotic throne on the planet, that of Brazil. For many people, the country was then an unknown land.

Pedro II was not an aristocrat with conservative ideas, quite the opposite. He believed in progress through education. There was one thing he could not stand in the mores of Brazil: slavery. He did everything to have what he calls the "shame of the Empire" abolished.

SECRETS OF HISTORY takes us to the heart of the imperial palace of Petropolis, a magnificent and quaint city, where Pedro's modern, humanist, shy and discreet soul still floats above the gardens.