Adopting the Imperial Idea Beyond Europe

During the Napoleonic period, ‘the imperial idea’ spread to colonial territories far from Europe. This chapter discusses how Brazil became an empire when Pedro I declared independence from Portugal and how Mexico declared independence from Spain under Agustín de Iturbide. Pedro II succeeded his father as emperor of Brazil but abdicated in 1889. Agustín I was executed in 1824, as was the second emperor of Mexico, Maximilian of Austria, in 1867. These emperors also had to create symbolic power with courts, costumes, ceremonial, and coronations on the Napoleonic model, Queen Victoria was given the title of empress in 1876 and the British invented a ceremony of acclamation in 1877 which they called a ‘durbar’.