[1][2][3] Manoel Joaquim Ferreira Netto, a Portuguese nobleman with many possessions in Brazil, stated in his will that after his death, all his slaves should be freed, what at the time was called "post-mortem manumission".

[1][3] The black lawyer and abolitionist Luís Gama read a newspaper article in June 1869 that reported the legal dispute of Ferreira Netto's relatives over the patriarch's estate, and became interested in the slaves' situation.

[2] In defense, Ferreira Netto's heirs hired the jurist, abolitionist and poet José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, known as "The Younger", to represent their rights in the lawsuit filed by Luís Gama.

[1][3] Under the allegation that the heirs were committing a crime by enslaving people already declared free, Gama obtained success with the Santos forum, when the judge determined the liberation of all the slaves.

[4] The documentation referring to the Netto Question was recovered in the 21st century by historian Bruno Rodrigues de Lima, who earned his doctorate in History and Theory of Law from the Max Planck Institute.