The study begins with an analysis of Brazilian slavery, showing why it was always dependent for its existence upon the
slave trade. The abolitionist movement is studied in depth with much attention given to slaveholder and abolitionist views, but the work also reveals events and forces which undermined slavery during its final years: the ending of the African traffic and the resulting decline of the slave population; an internal slave trade which concentrated slaves and pro-slavery sentiment into the richest agricultural regions; abolition in the United States which induced in Brazil a policy of gradual
emancipation through free birth; and finally, slave resistance culminating in a massive runaway movement in 1887-1888. Many comparisons are made with slavery in the United States. |
