ity
caused them to relent to the extent of making a pact with the discarded
ones to admit them to their society on sufferance once a year. We have
no sufficient data concerning the organization of government of the
tribe or other information which would admit of treating this subject
otherwise than as a curious historic phase of Brazilian womanhood.

Through the periods of settlement and the Portuguese rule we pass
without notice of any woman of such prominence as to secure noteworthy
mention, yet woman's influence must have been exerted and felt along
each step of the path toward independence; they buttressed with their
ambition and patriotism the enlarging spirit of nationality. So in the
crisis that followed the declaration of independence in 1822, we need
not be surprised to find a woman mentioned for heroism and patriotism. A
Bahian girl, Maria de Jesus Medeiros, touched by her father's lament
that he had no son to fight in his country's cause, and fired to action,
disguised herself as a soldier and fought through the war. Her signal
service, however, was on the occasion of the attempted landing of a
powerful force of Lusitanians at the mouth of the Paraguassu River. Here
Maria stood to resist the invader; at the head of a troop of Bahian
Amazons she charged the oncoming soldiers, and, in spite of superior
numbers, discipline and equipment, her valor and that of her companions
prevailed and the discomfited Portuguese were driven back ingloriously.

In the absence of more specific information we may, moreover, gather
that woman's influence was of notable moment in Brazil at the period of
the independence, for we find that in 1821, Viscount de Pedra Branca, a
deputy from Bahia to the Cortes at Lisbon, a prominent leader of the
Liberals and a man of world-wide fajne, advocated that political liberty
should be granted to Portuguese women, and the fact that the Cortes
ignored his plea does not lessen the force of the presumption that woman
in Brazil had acquired pronounced influence in politics at this time.

Among the women of the period of the empire the Crown Princess Isabel
stands most prominent, and exception will hardly be taken to her
inclusion in an account of Brazilian women. On her shoulders, as regent,
devolved the government at intervals for many years. Remarkable for
firmness of character, she was moreover imbued with lofty principles.
The conspicuous act of her regency was the emancipation of the slaves,