“A valsa dos pobres” : o Congresso de Viena, os Países Ibéricos e a América Meridional

Abstract

The aim of this work is to understand the diplomatic relations between Spain and Portugal during the Congress of Vienna and its bindings with Iberian politics in South America. After the Napoleonic Wars, Spain and Portugal were reinserted into the international system as peripheral forces in European policy. Without the same diplomatic density of previous times it was up to Portuguese diplomacy to build arrangements that were able to offer some role of participation in the reorganization of the European order. From the study of diplomatic correspondence between the two courts and their diplomats it was possible to realize that while Spain directed its efforts to strength Bourbon legitimacy in the Italian territories, the Portuguese diplomacy was concentrated on the restitution of the territory of Olivenza, taken by the Spaniards in the war of 1801. For different reasons and agendas, now structured, however improvised, the issues concerning South America, especially the Missoes Orientais do Urugua and the Banda Oriental as a whole have entered transversely the agendas of Vienna.