country, idealized the flag of Brazil, in which she mixed the green of the House of Braganza and the golden yellow of the House of Habsburg. Other authors say that Jean-Baptiste Debret, the French artist who designed what he saw in Brazil in the 1820s, was the author of the national pavilion that replaced that of the old Portuguese court, symbol of the oppression of the old regime. Debret is the design of the beautiful imperial flag, in collaboration with José Bonifácio de Andrada, in which the green rectangle of the Braganza represented the forests and the yellow rhombus, color of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, represented the gold. After that, Maria Leopoldina committed herself deeply in the recognition of the autonomy of the new country by the European courts, writing letters to the father, the Emperor of Austria, and to her father-in-law, the King of Portugal. Maria Leopoldina became Brazil's first Empress consort, being acclaimed as such on 12 October 1822, at the coronation ceremony and consecration of her husband as Dom Pedro I, Constitutional Emperor and Perpetual Defender of Brazil. Due to Brazil's status as at the time the only monarchy in South America, Maria Leopoldina was the first Empress of the New World. Bahia's participation in the independence process First headquarters of the government, radiating center for metropolitan policies and strategic port, Bahia only lost its privileged situation in Brazil with the discovery of gold in the Hereditary Captaincy of Espírito Santo, and the region where the deposits were discovered by Bandeirantes was dismembered from the said captaincy and transformed in the province of Minas Gerais (dismemberment that was repeated as new deposits were discovered, causing the Captaincy of Espírito Santo to narrow Minas Gerais, in an ill-fated containment barrier against gold smuggling) and the subsequent transfer of the capital to Rio de Janeiro, in 1776. Salvador did not want to welcome the passing court, as it did in 1808, but permanently. In the process of separating from Portugal, Bahia hosted antagonistic currents: the pro-independence interior and the capital loyal to the court of Lisbon. After 7 September 1822, there was an armed struggle that gave victory to the imperial troops on 2 July 1823. Bahian women actively participated in the patriotic battle. Maria Quitéria, enlisted clandestinely as a loyal soldier to the Brazilian cause, was described by Maria Graham and decorated by the Order of the Southern Cross