 Manuel Marques de Sousa , Count of Porto Alegre ( 13 June 1804 – 18 July 1875 ) , nicknamed " the Gloved Centaur " , was an army officer , politician , abolitionist and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil . Born into a wealthy family of military background , Porto Alegre joined the army in 1817 when he was little more than a child . His military initiation occurred in the conquest of the Banda Oriental ( Eastern Bank ) , which was annexed and became the southernmost Brazilian province of Cisplatina in 1821 . For most of the 1820s , he was embroiled in the Brazilian effort to keep Cisplatina as part of its territory : first during the struggle for Brazilian independence and then in the Cisplatine War . It would ultimately prove a futile attempt , as Cisplatina successfully separated from Brazil to become the independent nation of Uruguay in 1828 . 
