His insistent war in Portugal to uphold the claims of his daughter to the throne betrayed, or seemed to betray, dynastic ambitions.

His inability to hold Uruguay as a Brazilian province, and his continued retention of foreign soldiers who had been employed in the struggle with the Argentine Confederation, for the apparent purpose of quelling possible insurrections in the future, bred much discontent.

So also did the restraints he laid upon the press, which had been infected by the liberal movements in neighboring republics.

When he failed to subdue these outbreaks, his rule became all the more discredited.
Thereupon, menaced by a dangerous uprising at Rio de Janeiro in 1831, he abdicated the throne in favor of his son, Pedro, then five years of age, and set sail for Portugal.
Under the influence of Great Britain the small European mother country had in 1825 recognized the independence of its big transatlantic dominion; but it was not until 1836 that the Cortes of Spain authorized the Crown to enter upon negotiations looking to the same action in regard to the eleven republics which had sprung out of its colonial domain.

Even then many years elapsed before the mother country acknowledged the independence of them all..