Prestes Column

Prestes Column, military brigade fueling the political discontent in Brazil that played a role in the Revolution of 1930. Late in 1924 former army captain Luís Carlos Prestes led 800 rebels from Rio Grande do Sul to Paraná to join the São Paulo Column that had revolted in July against President Artur Bernardes and the political fraud that they felt had helped make him president in 1922. Fleeing superior federal forces in Paraná, the Prestes and São Paulo columns marched through Paraguay in April 1925 and, in Mato Grosso, organized themselves into one column of 1,200 revolutionaries headed by Miguel Costa (a former major in the São Paulo state troop), with Prestes as chief of staff and Juarez Távora as assistant chief of staff and with four detachments led by Oswaldo Cordeiro de Farias, João Alberto Lins de Barros, Antônio de Siqueira Campos, and Djalma Soares Dutra.

Prestes provided the Long March of more than 15,000 miles with the leadership needed to prevail in the face of malaria, unfavorable terrain, federal and state troops, and ruffians (jagunços), armed by the Bernardes government. After the column moved from the north to Brazil's northeast bulge, it had to battle continuously and failed to obtain allies. In February 1926, Costa and Prestes issued a manifesto decrying Brazil's administrative dishonesty, fraudulent elections, press censorship, and lack of social legislation and justice. While government troop commanders bickered, the column reached Bahia's interior, where the thirsty, hungry revolutionaries, many suffering from malaria, plodded on foot, carrying the wounded. But on the circuitous return to Mato Grosso, they replaced lost horses and warded off savage attacks by jagunços, led by backland "colonels." Early in 1927 the men supported Costa's recommendation to disband, undefeated by Bernardes, whose term had ended. Prestes, made popular by the anti-Bernardes press, took 620 men into Bolivia and found road-building jobs for many. The last 65 to disband entered Paraguay with Siqueira Campos in March 1927.

See alsoBrazil, Revolutions: Revolution of 1930; Coronel, Coronelismo.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lourenço Moreira Lima, A Coluna Prestes (1934).

Neill Macaulay, The Prestes Column (1974).

Anita L. Prestes, A Coluna Prestes (1990).

Additional Bibliography

Barros, João Alberto Lins de. A marcha da coluna. Rio de Janeiro: Biblioteca do Exército Editora, 1997.

Camillo Filho, José. A Coluna Prestes no Piauí. Teresina, Piauí, Brazil: UFPI, 1996.

Meirelles, Domingos. As noites das grandes fogueiras: Uma história da Coluna Presta. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 1995.

                                      John W. F. Dulles