Museu da Inconfidência

Tiradentes' grave and the documents of Brazil's first independence plot

The museum occupies the old town jail on Praça Tiradentes — a long, low building completed in 1846 after the gold had run out and Ouro Preto could no longer afford grandeur. Two floors of galleries trace the colonial gold rush, the slave economy that powered it, and the 1789 Inconfidência conspiracy that the town is now identified with.

The collection includes Aleijadinho sketches and tools, period furniture, and colonial silverwork. Allow an hour and a half. Information panels are in Portuguese only — the gift shop sells a useful English guide.

things to do museum
A story
The museum's centrepiece is the Panteão dos Inconfidentes — a chamber holding the remains of the conspirators. Tiradentes' bones were never recovered, so his tomb is symbolic. The actual relics are unsettling: a verdict written in Lisbon ordering his quartering, the page from the trial register that reads "executed," and the iron shackles his fellow plotters wore in Portuguese prisons.