In 1883, abolitionists, led by José do Patrocínio, followed the North-American example, and launched a campaign for creating free soils. The strategy consisted of buying up freedom certificates or persuading slave owners to give them for free at intervals. The tactic did not work well in the capital of the Empire. Then Patrocínio joined the campaign in Ceará, selected for having small slave stocks, strong local abolitionist associations, and a provincial president willing to support the movement. Abolitionists went house to house, city by city, and started a countdown to province-wide abolition. Patrocínio traveled to Paris, where, as Nabuco in London, organized events to showcase the movement’s international support and embarrass the national government, thus preventing repression. In March 1884, abolitionists declared Ceará to be "free soil." On the eve of mobilization, Patrocínio and Rebouças created the Abolitionist Confederation, embracing all abolitionist associations all over the country, and launched a manifesto for the immediate and non-indemnified abolition of slavery. The Abolitionist Confederation continued the free soil campaign around the country and organized propaganda events in the public space, making abolitionist presence impossible to be ignored. This strategy caused a crisis in the political institutions and a growing pro-slavery reaction.

The nationalization of abolitionism came about when slavery returned to the institutional agenda in 1878, thanks to the full implementation of the free-womb law and the change of government. After a decade of demanding reforms in the public space, the Liberals were in power. The abolitionists seized the opportunity to step up their protest. A new generation, in part benefiting from the educational reforms of the 1870s, joined the mobilization. Among them was the black journalist José do Patrocínio, who joined Rebouças in founding an abolitionist association and started the “concert-conferences”, an expansion of Abílio Borges´s civic conferences. Held in theaters, with poetry rrecitations and operas, these events ended with the presentation of manumission certificates and a shower of flowers over the freed slaves.This was the preferred abolitionist strategy in the following years, a pacific style of mobilization, which conferred public legitimacy upon the campaign in the large cities and allowed women to enter the campaign. Numeric growth, geographic expansion, tactical variety, and the social diversity of the activists allowed the movement to become national.

This chapter focus on the institutional debates around a free-womb law project. The Conservative Party´s modernizing faction, led by Prime Minister, the Viscount of Rio Branco, proposed a free-womb law bill - inspired by Spanish legislation – on the House floor, in 1871. This action provoked a pro-slavery backlash. From the diffuse proslavery social groups (entire social strata had economic activities and a way of life-based on slave labor) emerged a politically organized pro-slavery reaction. This countermovement diffused proslavery rhetoric (a "circumstantial" defense of slavery), organized civil associations (Plantation Clubs), and formed a parliamentary bloc (the “hardliners”). On the other side, the first cycle of antislavery mobilization in the public space appeared, with public conferences, pamphlets, and the foundation of civil associations between 1868 and 1871. Resistance did not prevent the free-womb Law from being approved in 1871, liberating children born to slave mothers. It mitigated, however, the government’s original bill and postponed its full enforcement until the newborns had reached the age of eight, in 1879.

After the promulgation of the free-womb law, in 1871, abolition was dropped from the institutional agenda, until 1879, when the law was supposed to be in full force. At this point, abolitionists invested in parliamentary strategies, led by a young Liberal Party leader, Joaquim Nabuco. A remarkable orator, Nabuco defended abolition in speeches and presented bills to Parliament, emulating William Wilberforce. Nabuco and Rebouças joined in a new abolitionist association, aiming to connect the abolitionist bloc in Parliament with the campaign in the public space. Nabuco also repeated the Borges' strategy, traveling to Europe and building alliances with abolitionists in Spain, France, and Britain, among others. Nabuco was the abolitionist candidate in the next parliamentary election but ended up not being elected. Nabuco then moved to London, where he kept Brazilian participation in the international abolitionist network alive. At this time, local mobilization grew in Ceará, one of the Brazilian provinces with few slaves. Abolitionists blocked the port there, preventing slaves from being transported. At this point, the abolitionist movement was a national network, with strong international connections. Abolitionist associationism had spread, with societies for the abolition of slavery all over the country.

There had always been antislavery statements in Brazil, but a social movement for abolition arose in the mid-1860s, thanks to changes in the international scene – the abolition of slavery in the United States and its acceleration in the Spanish colonies – that caused a split in imperial political parties over whether to propose a free-womb law. This context triggered the onset of anti-slavery mobilization in Brazil, as an elite based abolitionism, led by dissident members of the imperial elite. Two of them created styles of activism which were used throughout the campaign. The black entrepreneur André Rebouças started lobbying for abolition, working as a bridge between the social elite, court society, and the political system, while the educator Abílio Cesar Borges created abolitionist “civic ceremonies”, with poetic declamations, and encouraged his international abolitionist contacts to pressurize the Brazilian Emperor to be in favor of abolition.