Abolitionism in Brazil

José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, in his famous representation to the Constituent Assembly of 1823,[1] had already called slavery a "deadly cancer that threatened the foundations of the nation".

In the words of historian Antônio Barreto do Amaral: "In his 'Memórias para o melhoramento da Província de São Paulo, aplicável em grande parte às demais províncias do Brasil' (Memoirs for the improvement of the São Paulo Province, applicable in large part to the other provinces of Brazil), presented to Prince João VI in 1810, and published by the author in 1822, after enumerating and criticizing the acts of the Captains Generals that contributed to hindering the development of São Paulo, he went on to deal with the servile element and free immigration, which could contribute to the coming of European populations plagued by the ravages of Napoleon's wars.

In March 1845, the term of the last treaty signed between Brazil and the United Kingdom expired, and the British government decreed, in August, the Aberdeen Act.

Named after Lord Aberdeen of the Foreign Office, the act gave the British Admiralty the right to arrest slave ships, even in Brazilian territorial waters, and to judge their captains.

Criticized in the United Kingdom itself for pretending to make England the "moral guardian of the world," in Brazil, the Aberdeen Act provoked panic in slave traders and landowners.

Yielding to pressure, Dom Pedro II took an important step: his cabinet prepared a bill, presented to the parliament by Minister of Justice Eusébio de Queirós, which adopted effective measures for the extinction of the slave trade.

The crew and those who help in the unloading of slaves in Brazilian territory are accomplices, as well as those who contribute to hide them from the authority's knowledge, or to subtract them from apprehension at sea, or in the act of unloading and being pursued.One of its articles determined the trial of offenders should be done by the Admiralty, thus passing on to the imperial government the power to judge, which had previously been conferred on local judges.

[3] In 1880, important politicians, such as Joaquim Nabuco and José do Patrocínio, created, in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian Society Against Slavery,[3] which stimulated the formation of dozens of similar associations around Brazil.

Although it is not widely known, the Positivist Church of Brazil, with Miguel Lemos and Raimundo Teixeira Mendes, had an outstanding role in the abolitionist campaign, including by delegitimizing slavery, seen, from then on, as a barbaric and backward way of organizing work and treating human beings.

[3] With the amalgamation of 13 associations, the Brazilian Abolitionist Confederation was founded on August 13, 1883, and, beginning in 1884, there was an intensification of activism in public spaces and greater institutionalization of the movement.

[3] Noteworthy is the Ave Libertas Society, an abolitionist group founded in Pernambuco in 1884 and led by women, which, in the first year of activity, achieved the alforria of 200 captives.

José Bonifácio, pioneer of the abolition, Eusébio de Queirós, who abolished the slave trade, the Viscount of Rio Branco, responsible for the Rio Branco Law (a free womb law), and the abolitionists Luís Gama, Antônio Bento, José do Patrocínio, Joaquim Nabuco, Silva Jardim and Rui Barbosa were Masons.

In São Paulo, the work of the ex-slave and one of the greatest heroes of the abolitionist cause, the lawyer Luís Gama, directly responsible for the liberation of more than a thousand captives, stands out.

In the last years of slavery in Brazil, the abolitionist campaign became radicalized with the thesis "Abolition without compensation" launched by journalists, liberal professionals, and politicians who did not own rural properties.

After 21 years without any governmental measure regarding the end of slavery, the Rio Branco Law, better known as the Free Womb Law, was voted, which considered all children of slaves born from its publication, and intended to establish an evolutionary stage between slave labor and the free labor regime, without, however, causing abrupt changes in the economy or in society.

[9] According to the law, the slaves' children (called ingenuous) had two options: they could either stay with their mothers' masters until they reached the age of majority (21) or they could be handed over to the government.

The recently uncovered areas in the west region of São Paulo proved to be more disposed to the total emancipation of the slaves: rich and prosperous, they already exerted a great attraction on immigrants, and were better prepared for the regime of wage labor.

The enslaved blacks and mulattos also began to participate more actively in the struggle, fleeing the farms and seeking freedom in the cities, especially after 1885, when corporal punishment of runaway slaves was prohibited when they were recaptured.

In the interior of São Paulo, led by the mulato Antônio Bento and his caifazes (a group of abolitionists), thousands of them escaped from the farms and settled in the Jabaquara Quilombo, in Santos.

Fortunately, the landowners of São Paulo understood that, in the face of the inaction of the Public Force, it would be better to capitulate before the disorder, so they gave freedom to the slaves.In the same vein, Joaquim Manuel de Macedo wrote in his book "As Vítimas-Algozes", denouncing the complicity of small commercial establishments, called venda, in the receiving of goods stolen from the farms by slaves and quilombolas: The "venda" doesn't sleep: at late hours of the night the Quilombolas come, the runaway slaves and those holed up in the forests, bringing the tribute of their depredations on the neighboring or distant plantations to the venda owner, who collects the second harvest of what he didn't sow, and who always has in reserve for the Quilombolas food resources that they cannot do without, and also, not infrequently, gunpowder and lead for resistance in the case of attacks on the Quilombos.On May 13, 1888, the imperial government yielded to pressure and Princess Isabel de Bragança signed the Golden Law, which extinguished slavery in Brazil.

Without schooling or a defined profession, for most of them the simple legal emancipation did not change their subordinate condition, nor did it help to promote their citizenship or social ascension.

The ex-slaves, used to the guardianship and curatorship of their former masters, scattered from the farms to "try their lives" in the cities; a life that consisted of: liquor by the gallon, misery, crime, illness and premature death.

The only part of São Paulo that suffered less was that which had already received some foreign immigration in advance; the Province as a whole lost almost its entire coffee crop for lack of pickers!The Golden Law was the crowning achievement of the first national mobilization of public opinion, in which politicians and poets, slaves, freedmen, students, journalists, lawyers, intellectuals and workers participated.

May 13 (once a national holiday during the Old Republic), because of Princess Isabel (daughter of Emperor Dom Pedro II), became the "freedom granting May 13", and highlights the support given by many white people of the time to the abolition of slavery.

The struggle is everyone's and it is inside the monster.The original document of the Golden Law, signed by Princess Isabel, is currently in the collection of the Brazilian National Archives in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

So that only those on whom there is a clear right of ownership should be declared slaves and kept as such; and even then, if it is not possible, strictly or at least in equity and in favor of liberty, to exempt them from captivity, if only by means of compensation to the master.

"[13] The Free Womb Law states, in its article 1, §1, that the children of slave women up to 8 incomplete years of age are the property of their mothers' owners.

51 "making provision for the re-registration of all slaves until July 1885, leaving free those who were not registered and whose value would be arbitrated according to the process of the law for liberation by the emancipation fund.

However, this decision was only made effective on May 13, 1891, during the administration of Tristão de Alencar Araripe, who, in the minutes of the meeting that culminated in such destruction, ordered an analysis of the slave situation from the legal point of view a year earlier, and the abolitionist tendencies at that time.

The starting date for the proceedings was supposed to be the inauguration of the new legislature on November 20, 1889, and the princess intended to execute it with the help of influential abolitionists in the government and in the media such as Joaquim Nabuco and José do Patrocínio.