The History Of The Military Brigade's Uniforms

There are many gaps in the history of the Brazilian Military Brigade, due to the lack of more in-depth research, especially in the 19th century. This is because, in that period, the competencies of the military forces of that time, such as the National Guard and the Army, had not yet been defined. The Military Brigade officially considers its creation date to be November 18, 1837, under the denomination of Police Force. However, the Corporation has not always adopted this date, because in the beginning of the 20th century, for several times, the institution celebrated its anniversary referring the creation to October 15, 1892, when an act signed by the then acting President of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, Fernando Abbott, officially decreed the creation of the Military Brigade, using for the first time this specific name and, at the same time, extinguished the Civic Guard. So we can say that there are two important dates related to the creation of the Brigade: 1837 and 1892. However, there is an almost complete lack of information regarding the evolution of the Brigade uniforms. I tried to fill this lack by consulting old photographs, and imagining the colors taking into account the tonality of the image, and comparing with uniforms of the same period in other countries, particularly France, which had a strong influence on military clothing in much of the world. With this work, we only intend to put one more humble grain of sand in the reconstruction of our state s past.