What Brazil and the world were like in 1822, the year of Independence; see maps

According to the most recent projections of the United Nations, the population of the Earth is close to reaching 8 billion people. The entity predicts that the planet should reach the mark by approximately November 15 this year.

The first billion Earthlings were reached 200 years ago, in the 1820s, close to the year of Brazil’s Independence — although demographic statistics at the time were considered speculative.

Europe, which saw itself as the center of the world, had a fifth of that population. In Brazil, there were about 4.5 million inhabitants, 800,000 indigenous, 1 million white, 1.2 million enslaved Africans and their descendants and 1.5 million smaller groups resulting from miscegenation between the previous groups. The numbers are in the book “1822”, by Laurentino Gomes.

According to maps at the time, Brazil had not acquired Acre, and even the borders with its northern neighbors had not yet been demarcated in fact.

That’s where the snap came to observe other cartographic differences between 1822 and 2022. Out of curiosity, the 32 countries that will compete in the Qatar World Cup are taken as a basis.

In 1822, Doha, the host’s capital, was a small commercial fort, which was still rebuilding after being bombed by the British West India Company for piracy in the Persian Gulf region.

The journey then begins with South America: Ecuador did not yet exist, as it was part of Gran Colombia, a country that also included present-day Venezuela and Panama. Uruguay had been annexed to Brazil, under the name of Cisplatina. Its independence would only happen in 1828.

Even Argentina, at that time, was formed by the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata, which encompassed the regions close to Buenos Aires. Patagonia, in the south of the country, for example, would only become part of Argentine territory after 1879.

In Central and North America, Costa Rica was part of the Federal Republic of Central America, along with Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua, but theoretically it was still linked to Mexico between January 1822 and June 1823, the date of the definitive separation. Of region. The Federal Republic of Central America would be dissolved in 1841.

The United States had barely crossed the west of the Mississippi River and was formed by 24 states in the year of Brazilian independence. Canada, on the other hand, appeared as a British colony north of the US. In fact, many Britons who preferred to remain faithful to King George III emigrated to Canadian lands after the American declaration of independence in 1776.

Canada did not yet have the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, an independent colony on the north Atlantic coast, which lived off cod fishing. There were also no provinces to the west, such as British Columbia, and even the city of Vancouver would not be founded until 1886.

In that span of 200 years, Europe has also undergone changes. There are curiosities to be highlighted. It was not until 1871 that Germany became a unified country. In 1822, it was formed by 39 independent regions, known by the name of the German Confederation, of which the former Prussia and Bavaria stood out.

Poland had ceased to exist in 1795, when its territory was divided between Prussia, Russia and Austria – the country would only regain independence in 1918. Serbia had been freed shortly before the rule of the former Ottoman Empire. It became a kingdom in 1817, while modern Croatia was under Austrian rule.

At that time, Belgium also did not exist, as it was another province of the Netherlands (Holland), coming to rebel against its northern neighbor and separating in the year 1830.

Switzerland had existed as a nation since 1648, but its most recent status was to be considered a neutral country in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna (which decided the course of European countries after the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte).

Saudi Arabia and Tunisia were part of the Ottoman Empire, which stretched from the border with Morocco in North Africa to Persia, present-day Iran. Morocco was a sultanate ruled by Sulayman bin Mohammed, who closed the country’s ports to Europeans. Interestingly, only American ships could dock on its coast.

Still in Africa, the British had just settled in Ghana, founding the Gold Coast colony in 1821, although the Portuguese had already built the Elmina fort in the 15th century.

The coast of Senegal had been explored by Europeans in the same way since the 15th century and its most important city was Saint Louis (Ndar), as the Senegal colony did not exist and would only be founded by the French, in fact, after 1850. Modern Cameroon did not exist, and Douala, the country’s second largest city, was a fishing village and entrepot in the African slave trade region — increasingly visited by the French and British.

In Asia, Korea and Japan were independent kingdoms, isolated from the Western world. Korea was under the sphere of influence of China’s Qing empire. Japan, on the other hand, was administered in the form of a shogunate (dominion exercised by military leaders), under the Tokugawa dynasty, which lasted until 1867, when the country was definitively opened to foreigners.

Finally, Australia – yes, the country of Oceania will play its sixth Cup, the fifth in a row – was mapped in detail by Captain James Cook only in 1770, although it had been explored by the Dutch in the early 17th century.

In 1788, the region of New South Wales was occupied by the British, although its first function was that of being a penal colony – Cook named the region “New Wales” and later “New South Wales” in honor of the Country of Wales, one of the UK’s four nations, which will be back in a Cup after 64 years.

At the time of Brazilian Independence, Sydney harbor was already occupied by settlers and free families, but the British had barely crossed the Blue Mountains, only 60 km from the coast. Only the eastern part of Australia was known and claimed to be British rule. Even the island of Tasmania would not become part of the colony until 1825.