Riachuelo was a Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian ironclad

Ironclad warship

An ironclad was a steam-propelled warship in the early part of the second half of the 19th century, protected by iron or steel armor plates. The ironclad was developed as a result of the vulnerability of wooden warships to explosive or incendiary shells. The first ironclad battleship, La Gloire,...

 battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

 completed in 1883. She was named in honour of the Battle of Riachuelo

Battle of Riachuelo

The naval Battle of Riachuelo was a key point in the War of the Triple Alliance. By late 1864, Paraguay had scored a series of victories in the war; on June 11, 1865, however, its naval defeat by Brazil began to turn the tide in favor of the allies....

 in 1865.

Design

Riachuelo was built after the Brazilian Minister of the Navy, Admiral Jose Rodrigues de Lima Duarte, presented a report to the national legislature on the importance of modernising the Brazilian Navy

Brazilian Navy

The Brazilian Navy is a branch of the Brazilian Armed Forces responsible for conducting naval operations. It is the largest navy in Latin America...

 by acquiring new battleships, with the intention to order two from British shipyards. Riachuelo was constructed by Samuda Brothers

Samuda Brothers

Samuda Brothers was an engineering and ship building firm at Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs in London, founded by Jacob and Joseph d'Aguilar Samuda. The site is now occupied by Samuda Estate....

 in London, being laid down on 31 August 1881, launched on 7 June 1883 and commissioned into the Brazilian Navy on 19 November 1883. The slightly smaller Aquidabã

Brazilian battleship Aquidabã

Aquidabã, anglicized as Aquidaban, was a ‎Brazilian ironclad warship built in the mid-1880s. The ship participated in two naval revolts; during the second she was sunk by a government torpedo boat. After being refloated, Aquidabã was sent to Germany for repairs and modernization...

 was launched in 1885.

Riachuelo was constructed with a steel hull, and was the first battleship with a compound armour

Compound armour

Compound armour was a type of armour used on warships in the 1880s. By the end of the decade it had been rendered obsolete by nickel-steel armour.-Prior armours:...

 belt, following shortly after the Argentine armoured corvette Almirante Brown

ARA Almirante Brown (1880)

ARA Almirante Brown was a warship of the Argentine Navy built in 1880 and serving until 1932.Built in London by Samuda Brothers, the Almirante Brown displaced 4200 tons, could call upon a total of , and had a nominal speed of fourteen knots. The ship was protected by a belt of nine-inch steel-faced...

. Both Riachuelo and Aquidabã had an unusual design that became popular in the 1870s and 1880s: the two main gun turrets were placed off the centreline, en echelon, with the forward turret offset to port and the aft turret to starboard. The superstructure ran the full length of the vessel, higher than both turrets, with two funnels and three fully rigged masts. Aquidabã can be distinguished by its single funnel.

These two modern battleships made the Brazilian Navy the strongest in the western hemisphere. It was argued that either vessel could take on the entire United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

, pushing the U.S. to increase its naval spending and build its first battleships. A similar design was followed by the USS Maine

USS Maine (ACR-1)

USS Maine was the United States Navy's second commissioned pre-dreadnought battleship, although she was originally classified as an armored cruiser. She is best known for her catastrophic loss in Havana harbor. Maine had been sent to Havana, Cuba to protect U.S. interests during the Cuban revolt...

 and USS Texas

USS Texas (1892)

USS Texas was a second-class pre-dreadnought battleship built by the United States in the early 1890s. She was the first American battleship and the first ship named in honor of the state of Texas to be built by the United States...

, launched in 1889 and 1892 respectively. By the time they were completed in 1895, developments in battleship design made them obsolete.

In service

When the Republic of Brazil was declared in 1889, Riachuelo escorted the Brazilian Imperial Family to exile in Europe. Riachuelo and Aquidabã, the two most powerful vessels in the Brazilian Navy, were both in dock for repairs in 1891 during the first Revolta da Armada

Revolta da Armada

Brazilian Naval Revolts, or the Revoltas da Armada , were armed mutinies promoted mainly by Admirals Custodio de Mello and Saldanha da Gama and their fleet of Brazilian Navy ships against unconstitucional attitudes of the then the central government in Rio de Janeiro.-First revolt:In November 1891,...

 (mutiny of the Brazilian Navy), led by Custódio José de Mello, which eventually forced the dictatorial President, Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca

Deodoro da Fonseca

Marshal Manuel Deodoro da Fonseca became the first president of the Republic of Brazil after heading a military coup that deposed Emperor Pedro II and proclaimed the Republic in 1889, disestablishing the Empire of Brazil.- Biography :...

, to resign in favour of Marshal Floriano Peixoto

Floriano Peixoto

Floriano Vieira de Araújo Peixoto , April 30, 1839, Maceió, Brazil — July 29, 1895, Rio de Janeiro; born in Ipioca , was a Brazilian soldier and politician, a veteran of the War of the Triple Alliance, and the second President of Brazil.-Election and Succession as President:Floriano Peixoto...

The Riachuelo was modernised in Toulon

Toulon

Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....

 in 1893, where structural alterations included the replacement of the three rigged masts with two unrigged fighting masts. Riachuelo returned to active service in 1896, and led the so-called "White Squadron" of President Campos Sales on his official visit to Argentina in 1900, accompanied by the cruisers Barroso and Tamoio. Its last important mission in 1907 was to convey the Brazilian Naval Commission to take delivery of the new battleships, Minas Gerais

Brazilian battleship Minas Gerais

Minas Geraes,Pronounced in Portuguese. spelled Minas Gerais in some sources,Geraes was the spelling when the ship was commissioned, but later changes to Portuguese orthography deprecated it in favor of Gerais. was an encouraçado built for the Brazilian Navy...

 and São Paulo

Brazilian battleship Sao Paulo

São Paulo was a dreadnought battleship designed for the Brazilian Navy by the British company Armstrong Whitworth. She was the second of two ships in the Minas Geraes class, and was named after the state and city of São Paulo....

.

Riachuelo was deactivated in 1910 and put under tow to be broken up in Europe, but sank on the way.