Viscount of Rio Branco

----José Maria da Silva Paranhos, the Viscount of Rio Branco (Salvador, March 16, 1819 — Rio de Janeiro, November 1, 1880), was a senator and a diplomat during the period of the Empire of Brazil (1822-1889), as well as a teacher, a journalist, and one of the most prestigious politicians of his time – having occupied positions such as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Navy, Minister of War and Minister of Finance. He is also the father of José Maria da Silva Paranhos Júnior, the Baron of Rio Branco, who is the patron of Brazil's diplomacy.

In the press, the Viscount of Rio Branco's articles provided the public opinion with a view of the situation in the River Plate republics under Juan Manuel de Rosas and Manuel Oribe and led him to be invited, at the end of 1851, to act as Secretary to the Marquis of Paraná's mission in Montevideo, in the linking of alliances that resulted in the fall of Rosas, the leader of a confederation of states which would later become Argentina.

After this mission, he rapidly gained prominence as a diplomat. The Viscount of Rio Branco played a fundamental role in the demarcation of Brazil's boundaries with Uruguay and in the alliance formed later with that country with regard to the deaths and looting suffered by Brazilians abroad. In relation to foreign matters, he was also instrumental in the opening of the Rivers of the Plate Region to international shipping and in negotiations to end the War of Paraguay.

On the domestic front, the Viscount of Rio Branco is chiefly remembered for the fact that it was his office that, in 1871, promulgated Brazil's first abolitionist law - the Lei do Ventre Livre -, which set free all newborns whose father or mother were slaves.

He is also known for his support for the institution of "habeas corpus", the adoption of the concept of "uti possidetis", according to which, each state has the right to the territory that it occupies, and also for several advances in the social sphere, with improvements in teaching and in a material sense, with his incentive to the construction of railways and telegraphic lines. During the Republican period, his son, the Baron of Rio Branco, was to complete his work of delimiting Brazil's borders by means of the concepts and peaceful practices he had developed.