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The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade in 1850: Historiography, Slave Agency and Statesmanship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2002

JEFFREY D. NEEDELL
JEFFREY D. NEEDELL
Affiliation:
Jeffrey D. Needell is Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Florida.
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Abstract

In 1970 Leslie Bethell argued that the Brazilian slave trade was ended by British pressure. Since then others have pointed to slaveholders’ fears of insurrection and of yellow fever. This article addresses the issue by reviewing Brazilian slavery, the African trade and yellow fever. Its analysis of sources and context leads it to question revisionist arguments. Moreover, while it supports Bethell on the centrality of British pressure, it goes beyond his appreciation of internal Brazilian political affairs. It provides greater specificity, clarifying the key importance of political history, the structure of state-society relations and the significance of the Brazilian leadership of the time.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , November 2001 , pp. 681 - 711
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

All translations in the text and below are by the author. All orthography in the citations below is the original; modern Portuguese usage is maintained in the text and in text in the notes below. Brazilian usage is followed with respect to names, although the full name is used the first time the person appears in the text. This will mean that a person's first given name or a combination of two names (given or family) may be used the second or subsequent time the person is named in the text, depending upon the choices contemporaries established for that person.