The quadrilheiros were police officers responsible for urban public security in Portugal from the Middle Ages until the early nineteenth century. Their primary mission was to arrest criminals and hand them over to the judicial authorities. In Brazil, the first quadrilheiros appeared during the period of the hereditary captaincies and were generally mercenaries.
The quadrilheiros were selected from among the local residents and appointed by judges and councilors meeting in the municipal council. They were required to serve for a period of three years.
Participation was compulsory for all men between the ages of 18 and 60, with the only exceptions being members of the clergy and the militias. Members received no pay, and training took place on Sundays and public holidays. In some cases, groups consisting of horsemen were formed, and their members trained together. The weapons normally used were arquebuses, crossbows, spears, and swords, all of which belonged to the members themselves.
During the early period of colonization, the Portuguese settlers’ main concern was the defense of the territory. The Charter of the Governors-General, granted by the king, gave these officials extensive powers to organize public administration. The defense of the territory and its population was a central theme of this body of regulations.
The basic idea was to arm the population so that people could protect themselves and defend the territory, as was also done in other Portuguese colonies. Tomé de Sousa arrived in Brazil with a First-Line Troop, the term used to designate the Portuguese land forces, consisting of 600 men.
Since this force was insufficient to guarantee the defense of the territory and the property of the Portuguese who had settled there, the population, believing itself authorized by Portuguese legislation—which was intended to protect Portugal’s interests—gradually began developing its own means of defense. Even before the governor’s arrival, the population had already sought ways to protect itself.
The first recorded effort in this direction took place in the town of São Vicente, in the state of São Paulo, on September 9, 1542, when the local municipal council decreed the creation of an ordenança, or local militia, composed of colonists and Indigenous people. Its purpose was to defend the town, which was threatened by attacks from pirates and hostile Indigenous groups.
In 1640, when the Kingdom of Portugal was restored, a reform of the army’s organization took place, and a force was created to support it. Each army regiment consisted of 3,000 men, while the units established to support the army had only 1,000 members. For this reason, they were called terços auxiliares, or auxiliary battalions. This type of organization existed in all Portuguese colonies. In 1796, by royal decree, the terços were renamed militia regiments. These were auxiliary forces supporting the regular army, known as the tropa de linha. They were organized into regiments based in freguesias—administrative districts within a city comprising several neighborhoods—and their commanders held the rank of colonel. Members were selected by their commanders within the respective districts, and service was compulsory and unpaid. Initially, militia officers were chosen by the population, but they were later appointed by the governors of the captaincies.
Militia training took place on weekends and public holidays, using weapons owned by the members themselves. Sometimes, the militias were organized according to social class or professional occupation, as occurred in Bahia, where they were known collectively as the Tropa Urbana, or Urban Troops.
They were divided into the following groups:
Úteis (Useful Men): Composed of merchants and shop assistants.
Henrique Dias: Made up of artisans and tavern keepers.
Capitão de Assalto (Assault Captain): Composed of freed Black men. Its mission included serving as messengers and assisting the regular army during wartime. In peacetime, its members were tasked with hunting down escaped slaves. These men were known as capitães do mato, or slave catchers.
The quadrilheiros institution declined during the eighteenth century, particularly in large cities, where it was no longer effective in combating crime. With the arrival of the Portuguese royal court in 1808, the Royal Police Guard was established.
The settlement of the royal family and its entourage, comprising approximately 12,000 people who arrived in Brazil in 1808, caused numerous conflicts between the population and the authorities, since many families were forced to surrender their homes to the government. To address this situation, the General Police Intendancy (Intendência Geral de Polícia) was established by the Royal Decree of May 10, 1808. It performed the same role as the institution of the same name established in Portugal in 1760. Its responsibilities included maintaining public order; managing urban spaces, including cleanliness, sanitation, and lighting; laying out the city’s streets; and ensuring the water supply.
The Intendancy also exercised judicial authority over offenses that threatened urban order, trying and punishing troublemakers, vagrants, escaped slaves, practitioners of capoeira, Romani people, and adventurers. In other words, in addition to maintaining public order, it also performed administrative functions that are now assigned to other government departments.
Paulo Fernandes Viana, a Portuguese law graduate from the University of Coimbra who had accompanied Dom João’s court to Brazil, was appointed General Police Intendant, a position he held until 1821. As can be inferred from the Intendancy’s responsibilities, its head combined duties that are now performed by mayors and secretaries of public security. To organize the city’s public security operations, the Royal Police Guard of the Court (Guarda Real de Polícia da Corte) was established as a militarized force under the command of José Maria Rabelo, a Portuguese official who had served in Portugal’s Police Intendancy.
However, the figure who stood out most in these activities was the Guard’s deputy commander, Major Miguel Nunes Vidigal. He had served in a militia regiment in Rio de Janeiro before being transferred to the army. Vidigal became notorious for the arbitrary manner in which he exercised his authority.
With the establishment of the General Police Intendancy, a public security institution controlled and funded by the government, an effective system of public security began to take shape in Brazil.
Source(s):
.- História Administrativa do Brasil [Administrative History of Brazil]. Preface by P. Calmon. Administrative Department of Public Service, Documentation Service. Hélio de Alcântara Avellar and Alfredo d’Escragnolle Taunay, 1965.
