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Brazilian Abolitionism, Its Historiography, and the Uses of Political History*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2010

JEFFREY D. NEEDELL
JEFFREY D. NEEDELL
Affiliation:
Jeffrey D. Needell is Professor of History and Affiliate Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Florida. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Explanations of the Abolitionist movement's success in Brazil (1888) have, since the 1960s and 1970s, emphasised the movement's material context, its class nature, and the agency of the captives. These analyses have misunderstood and gradually ignored the movement's formal political history. Even the central role of urban political mobilisation is generally neglected; when it is addressed, it is crippled by lack of informed analysis of its articulation with formal politics and political history. It is time to recover the relationship between Afro-Brazilian agency and the politics of the elite. In this article this is illustrated by analysing two conjunctures critical to the Abolitionist movement: the rise and fall of the reformist Dantas cabinet in 1884–85, and the relationship between the reactionary Cotegipe cabinet (1885–88), the radicalisation of the movement, and the desperate reformism that led to the Golden Law of 13 May 1888.

Abstract

Las explicaciones sobre el éxito del movimiento abolicionista en Brasil (1888) han enfatizado, desde los años 60 y 70, el contexto material del movimiento, su naturaleza de clase y la agencia de los esclavizados. Estos análisis han malentendido y gradualmente ignorado la historia política formal del movimiento. Incluso, generalmente se ignora el papel central de la movilización política urbana y cuando se le toma en cuenta, ésta queda cojeando por la falta de análisis informado de su articulación con la política formal y la historia política. Toca ahora recuperar la relación entre la agencia afro-brasileña y las políticas de la élite. En este artículo se ilustra lo anterior al analizar dos coyunturas críticas del movimiento abolicionista: la subida y caída del gabinete reformista de Dantas en 1884–85 por un lado, y la relación entre el gabinete reaccionario de Cotegipe (1885–88), la radicalización del movimiento y las desesperadas reformas que llevaron a la Ley Aurea del 13 de mayo de 1888 por el otro.

Abstract

Desde as décadas de 1960 e 1970 explica-se o êxito do movimento abolicionista brasileiro em 1888 destacando seu contexto material, sua natureza classista, e a atuação dos cativos. A leitura de tais análises que gradualmente ignoraram a história política formal do movimento é equivocada. Mesmo o papel central da mobilização política urbana é normalmente negligenciado; quando tratada, a questão sofre por falta de análise informada acerca da articulação com a política formal e com a história política. Está na hora da relação entre a atuação afro-brasileira e a política das elites ser resgatada. Neste artigo, isto é ilustrado por um exame de duas conjecturas críticas para o movimento Abolicionista: a escalada e subsequente queda do gabinete Dantas em 1884–85, e a relação entre o gabinete reacionário de Cotegipe (1885–88), a radicalização do movimento e o reformismo desesperado que levou à Lei Aurea de 13 de maio de 1888.

Keywords

Brazilabolitionhistoriographypolitical historyAfro-Brazilian mobilisationslaveryempireBrasilaboliciónhistoriografíahistoria políticamovilización afro-brasileñaesclavitudimperioBrasilaboliçãohistoriografiahistória políticamobilização afro-brasileiraescravidãoimpério
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , May 2010 , pp. 231 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Demography is largely speculative in Brazilian historiography up to the twentieth century. That being said, many scholars begin with the first official census, 1872, which indicates that 38 per cent of the national population was ‘white’, with the remainder divided between 20 per cent ‘black’ and 42 per cent ‘mulatto’: see Thomas Skidmore, ‘Racial Ideas and Social Policy in Brazil, 1870–1940’, in Richard Graham (ed.), The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940 (Austin TX, 1990), p. 8. Note that the categorisation of an individual was highly subjective, very much a ‘social construct’. In US terms, for example, the number of whites indicated is probably too high, as miscegenation had been common for more than 300 years, ‘passing’ was commonplace, and other status markers were often conflated with phenotype. For comments on slaveholding among people of various strata and among people of colour, see Mary C. Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, 1808–1850 (Princeton NJ, 1987), pp. 342–3, 366; and Zephyr L. Frank, Dutra's World: Wealth and Family in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro (Albuquerque NM, 2004), chs. 1, 2, 4 and 5. For regional distribution, see Stanley J. Stein, Vassouras, A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850–1900: The Roles of Planter and Slave in a Plantation Society (Princeton NJ, 1985 [1958]), p. 295; Robert Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850–1888 (Berkeley CA, 1972), Appendix 1, Tables 1 and 2.

2 Stein, Vassouras, p. 295; Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 48–65, Appendix 1, Table 3; Karasch, Slave Life in Rio de Janeiro, pp. xxii, 65; Frank, Dutra's World, pp. 84–6, 100.

3 Joaquim Nabuco, O abolicionismo (4th edition, Petrópolis, 1977 [1883]), pp. 57–8, and Um estadista do Imperio: Nabuco de Araujo: sua vida, seus opiniões, sua epoca (3 vols., Rio de Janeiro, [c. 1897–98]), vol. 2, p. 389, and vol. 3, pp. 21–7; Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 16–17; Warren Dean, Rio Claro: A Brazilian Plantation System, 1820–1920 (Stanford CA, 1976), pp. 123, 140.

4 For an example of this common view, see Maurilio de Gouveia, História de escravidão (Rio de Janeiro, 1955); contemporary sources include Cristiano Benedito Otoni, Autobiografia (Brasilia, 1983 [c.1908]); Osorio Duque-Estrada, A abolição (esboço historico): 1831–1888 (Rio de Janeiro, 1918); Afonso Celso, Oito anos de parlemento (2nd edition, Brasilia, 1981 [1901]); Tobias Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a historia (Rio de Janeiro, 1913); Evaristo de Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, 1879–1888 (Rio de Janeiro, 1924); Joaquim Nabuco, Minha formação (Rio de Janeiro, 1900 [1893–99]); J. M. Pereira da Silva, Memorias do meu tempo (2 vols., Rio de Janeiro, 1895, 1896). ‘Culled’ is used advisedly, as the perspective and analysis of the various contemporaries cited varied considerably.

5 The use of ‘Marxist’ may be disputed: Weinstein uses ‘structuralist’ as well, and Cardoso seems to assume Marxism and to discuss authors' analyses within that; see Barbara Weinstein, ‘The Decline of the Progressive Planter and the Rise of Subaltern Agency: Shifting Narratives of Slave Emancipation in Brazil’, in Gilbert M. Joseph (ed.), Reclaiming the Political in Latin American History: Essays from the North (Durham NC, 2001), pp. 81–101; and Ciro Flamarion S. Cardoso, ‘A abolição como problema histórico e historiográfico’, in Ciro Flamarion S. Cardoso (ed.), Escravidão e abolição no Brasil: novas perspectivas (Rio de Janeiro, 1988), pp. 73–110. Although Otávio Ianni and Fernando Henrique Cardoso's early works are often cited, its focus on Rio and São Paulo and its iconic role in the literature privilege one particular work: Emilia Viotti da Costa, Da senzala à colônia (2nd edition, São Paulo, 1982 [1966]), which is what is summarised here. All three are part of the paulista school which had such a dramatic impact on the social sciences in the post-war era; Costa cites and summarises the arguments of another mestre of the school, Floristan Fernandes, in discussing the post-abolition plight of freedmen: see Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Capitalismo e escravidão no Brasil meridional: o negro na sociedade escravocrata do Rio Grande do Sul (São Paulo, 1962); Otávio Ianni, As metamorfoses do escravo: apogeu e crise da escravatura no Brasil meridional (São Paulo, 1962); Florestan Fernandes, A integração do negro na sociedade de classes (São Paulo, 1964). While Costa notes the contribution of Paula Beiguelman, Formação política do Brasil (2nd edition, São Paulo, 1976 [1961]), this work is generally neglected; it actually takes political history very seriously, but somehow neglects not only Afro-Brazilian agency but also that of the Abolitionists, focusing upon a struggle between institutions representing larger socio-economic interests.

6 See Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery; Robert Brent Toplin, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil (New York, 1975) and Rebecca Baird Bergstresser, ‘The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1880–1889’ (PhD diss., Stanford University, 1973) for these contributions, in the order noted. Richard Graham must also be cited here for his contribution to understanding the English influence on Brazilian Abolitionism and the emergence and role of the urban middle class: see, particularly, his ‘Causes for the Abolition of Negro Slavery in Brazil: An Interpretive Essay’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 123–37, and Britain and the Onset of Modernisation in Brazil: 1850–1914 (Cambridge, 1972). Both Conrad and Bergstresser ably critique his analyses. See also Roger Frank Colson, ‘The Destruction of a Revolution: Polity, Economy and Society in Brazil, 1750–1895’ (PhD diss., Princeton University, 1979): although the Abolitionist movement is not Colson's concern, the larger economic shifts and conflicting interests of the time are, and since financial crisis coloured parliamentary preoccupations, the dissertation remains indispensable. Regarding Abolitionism, his comments about what he calls the ‘Santos zone’ are particularly useful; cf. John Schulz's useful recent study, The Financial Crisis of Abolition (New Haven CT, 2008).

7 Costa, in discussing popular mobilisation (see Da senzala à colônia, pp. 396, 397, 403, 408, 414–16), neglects the issue of race, although she does note it on p. 422; elsewhere (pp. 426–7), she dismisses Afro-Brazilian racial solidarity, discussing the lack of it on the one hand but, on the other, emphasising Afro-Brazilian presence in the urban mobilisation and among the agents of rural mobilisation. Her explanation may derive from her perspective: ‘O movimento abolicionista não se colocava em termos raciais. Era primordialmente uma questão socio-econômica …’(p. 427). Bergstresser (‘The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery’, especially ch. 5), looking for it, finds it, at least in the leadership. Patrocínio, in particular, emphasised racial solidarity. Although Costa (pp. 426–7) cites both Nabuco and Antônio Bento speaking to the issue, she uses them to support her argument that such an appeal failed. Toplin (The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, pp. 69–72), in analysing the respective roles of whites and Afro-Brazilians in Abolitionism, suggests a class-based, de facto racial discrimination within the movement. Conrad (The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, p. 144) accepts Costa's position.

8 Examples of a subaltern agency approach to abolition are increasingly common, as Weinstein and Cardoso make clear; the citations here are by way of example. Early works stressing slaves’ agency, independent of Abolitionists, include Dean, Rio Claro, ch. 5; and Donald, Cleveland Jr., ‘Slave Resistance and Abolitionism in Brazil: The Campista Case, 1879–1888’, Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 13, no. 2 (1976), pp. 182–93Google Scholar. Sidney Chalhoub's Visões da liberdade: uma história das últimas décadas da escravidão na corte (São Paulo, 1990) uses several criminal cases to demonstrate the transition to freedom via Afro-Brazilians' negotiation and resistance. Machado, Maria Helena Pereira Toledo, ‘From Slave Rebels to Strikebreakers: The Quilombo of Jabaquara and the Problem of Citizenship in Late-Nineteenth-Century Brazil’, Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 86, no. 2 (2006), pp. 247–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and her O plano e o pánico: os movimentos sociais na década da Abolição (Rio de Janeiro, 1994), emphasise slave agency in São Paulo; Carlos Eugênio Líbano Soares, A negregada instituição: os capoeiras no Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro, 1994), ch. 5, focuses on the role of capoeiras. Beyond the issue of subaltern agency, other directions have been opened up, for example a promising trend towards shifts in juridical and cultural attitudes affecting slavery and abolitionism that includes Joseli Maria Nunes Mendonça, Entre a mão e os anéis: a lei dos sexagenários e os caminhos da Abolição no Brasil (Campinas, 1999), and Eduardo Spiller Pena, Pagens da casa imperial: jurisconsultos, escravidão e a Lei de 1871 (Campinas, 2001); there is also new work on provincial abolitionism, including Roger A. Kittleson, The Practice of Politics in Postcolonial Brazil: Porto Alegre, 1845–1895 (Pittsburgh PA, 2006), and Dale Torston Graden, From Slavery to Freedom in Brazil: Bahia, 1835–1900 (Albuquerque NM, 2006).

9 One is struck, for example, by how inclusive, dynamic and balanced Moraes' 1924 analysis is. Indeed, he anticipates the emphasis on interaction used in this article (see, for example, A campanha abolicionista, p. 326: ‘Nenhuma historia offerece melhores e mais suggestivos exemplos dessa acção e reacção reciprocas do que a historia da Abolição, entre nós.’).

10 During the monarchy (1822–89), the Council of Ministers was often referred to as the cabinet. Cabinets were known by the date of their appointment by the emperor. In the historiography, however, particularly after the 1847 establishment of the position of President of the Council of Ministers (prime minister), they are often referred to by his name. In this case, the minister was Manuel Pinto de Sousa Dantas.

11 On the historical background to Dantas' ascent, see Nabuco, Minha formação, pp. 233–4; Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a historia, pp. 9, 64–8; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 92–117; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 52–5; Costa, Da senzala à colônia, pp. 401–5; Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, chs. 12–14, especially pp. 194–8, 212–13; Toplin, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, pp. 99–101. The relative ignorance of parliamentary history becomes clear as one moves from Monteiro and Moraes to Conrad and Toplin.

12 ‘Gradual extinction’ was the alleged purpose of the controversial 1871 legislation, Brazil's first abolitionist reform, which was effectively imposed upon the nation by the emperor. While the enslaved were left captive, children born of slaves after 28 September 1871 were declared free. However, the legislation's constraints and ineffective enforcement rendered that freedom largely illusory. For the law's impact, see Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, ch. 7; for its origins and political significance, see notes 21 and 27 below.

13 On the decision for a ‘new phase’ of Abolitionist propaganda in May 1883, see André Rebouças, entry 4 May, diário 1883, Coleção André Rebouças, lata 464, Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro [hereafter CAR].

14 One should note that the movement in Ceará had an independent origin. Indeed, it inspired not only other provinces, but also the movement in the capital. It was linked to the national movement in Rio by Patrocínio's voyage there in 1882–3, and its mobilisation tactics of street-by-street public manumissions were later employed by Patrocínio in Rio. The references to Amazonas and Rio Grande do Sul point to the liberation of the first and the abolitionism adapted by the second: see Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, ch. 13, and Kittleson, The Practice of Politics.

15 Afro-Brazilian participation is disputed, as the historiographical review above (note 7) indicates. The argument here takes a very conservative, minimal position, and assumes that it is not unreasonable to propose that Afro-Brazilians were likely to be attracted to such a movement in at least the same proportion as they constituted in the free population of Rio. The racial composition of Rio's population, of course, is speculative. The first ‘reliable’ census data indicate that in 1872, the total population of the city was 274,972. Brazilian nationals totalled 190,693, of whom 144,882 were free. Of these, 58,590 were people of colour (37,167 pardos; 21,423 pretos) – in other words, 40 per cent of the total free population of Brazilian nationals. It is likely, of course, that some of those mobilised were not only free people of colour who were moved, as whites were, by the agitators' romantic, crusading appeal, but the captives themselves. Many urban slaves worked without supervision in the street, after all, and their own interests were clearly at stake. If they did participate in sufficient numbers, this would help to make people of colour more than half of those involved. On the census data, see Recenseamento Geral do Brasil, 1872: Municipio Neutro (Rio de Janeiro, 1872), p. 60.

16 Quotation from Gazeta de Noticias, 31 March 1884, taken from Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, p. 52, note 49.

17 Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 92–3. Duque-Estrada was an Abolitionist working with Patrocínio by 1887. The comment about the donations combines Duque-Estrada and Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 137–8, 148.

18 Despite the lacunae noted here, it is in the study of both the movement's mobilisation and the direct political response of the elite that the established literature has been richest. For the events and propaganda, see Costa, Da senzala à colônia, part 3; Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, chs. 10–14; Toplin, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, ch. 4; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 92–109; and Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 22–55. However, handling of the debates in most of the major works is limited to support for the historians' points, rather than analysis of the debates themselves. Rui de Barbosa's correspondence related to the Dantas cabinet is in the Fundação da Casa de Rui Barbosa (Rio); Nabuco's correspondence is in the Instituto Joaquim Nabuco (Recife); Cotegipe's in the Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro; João Alfredo's in the library of the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. To my knowledge, relatively little or no published use of these collections has been made by any of the historians concerned with abolition to date.

19 This analysis of parliamentary history draws on Jeffrey D. Needell, The Party of Order: The Conservatives, the State, and Slavery in the Brazilian Monarchy, 1831–1871 (Stanford CA, 2006), especially chs. 3, 4, 5 and 7; and the same author's ‘Variations on a Theme: Liberalism's Vagaries under the Brazilian Monarchy’, in Iván Jaksic and Eduardo Posada-Carbó (eds.), El liberalismo latinoamericano del siglo XIX: ensayos de historia política e intelectual, with prologue by Natalio Botana and epilogue by Frank Safford (Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica, forthcoming, autumn 2010).

20 Pereira da Silva, Memorias do meu tempo, vol. 2, pp. 183–273; Otoni, Autobiografia, chs. 15–16.

21 On the emperor's role regarding 1871, see Needell, The Party of Order, chs. 6–7. It may well have been his abolitionism which swayed the emperor's choice of the Liberals in 1878, ostensibly to undertake electoral reform. After all, while both parties supported electoral reform (on the Conservatives' position, see Needell, The Party of Order, pp. 263f, 281), only Liberal reformists were on record as embracing abolitionism: see Pereira da Silva, Memorias do meu tempo, vol. 2, pp. 272–6, 282; Otoni, Autobiografia, p. 200; Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a historia, pp. 64–8; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 52–5. The failures and frustrations of the Liberal cabinets and the emperor's role are precisely the sort of issue that Conrad (The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 212–13) and Toplin (The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, pp. 80, 81, 199–201) do not manage well.

22 Dantas' son-in-law, Jerônimo Sodré Pereira, was the first deputy to raise the issue of abolition in the Chamber, on 5 March 1879. Dantas' son, Rodolpho Epifânio de Sousa Dantas, now a deputy, was a close friend of Joaquim Nabuco, the second deputy to raise the issue in 1879 (22 March), and the acknowledged parliamentary chieftain of the Abolitionists; Rodolpho was an even closer friend of Rui Barbosa, a protégé of his father, and a militant Abolitionist since the 1860s.

23 On Abolitionist support for the cabinet, see Pereira da Silva, Memorias do meu tempo, vol. 2, chs. 14–15, passim, particularly pp. 280–1; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 158–60, 187; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 63–8, 79, 81–3; see also Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, ch. 14, both for this support and for the significance of the sexagenarian law (pp. 213–16); cf. Toplin, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, p. 102, on the law. Conrad makes the point that the sexagenarian law was resisted not only as an attack on property rights but because it would free the significant fraction of African captives who were in fact younger but had been registered as born before 1831 in order to avoid legal problems with the ban on the African slave trade after that date.

24 Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a historia, pp. 180–2.

25 Otoni, Autobiografia, pp. 215–18; Pereira da Silva, Memorias do meu tempo, vol. 2, pp. 282–3; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 74–8. These sources differ on whether the elections were corrupted to favour the cabinet or not. In either case they indicate the voters' rejection of the project. Otoni makes a point of stating that Dantas' electoral pressure was designed to bring in a Liberal majority without emphasis on abolitionism per se: he apparently assumed a Liberal majority would back him for partisan reasons. If this was his calculation, he was wrong.

26 On the Saraiva project, Pereira da Silva, Memorias do meu tempo, vol. 2, p. 297; Otoni, Autobiografia, pp. 220–3; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 163–9, 179; cf. Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 94–5. See also Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 222–3.

27 During the debates over the Law of the Free Womb, in 1871, the Conservative Party had been divided between those who had been induced to support the reform, led by the then prime minister, the Viscount do Rio Branco, and those who had opposed it. For the rest of the Rio Branco administration (1871–75), Paulino [José Soares de Sousa, filho], leader of the ‘dissident’ opposition to the reform, maintained resistance to Rio Branco. In the Conservative administration of the Duke de Caxias, which followed, party unity was emphasised, and Rio Branco and Paulino were reconciled: see de Souza Neto, Paulino José Soares, ‘Conselheiro Paulino de Souza’, Revista do Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, vol. 169 (1934), p. 503Google Scholar. João Alfredo, a cabinet minister in 1871, had played the critical role in organising Rio Branco's Chamber majority. With Rio Branco's death in 1880, João Alfredo effectively became his political heir in the reform wing of the party. Paulino continued to dominate the traditional hard core of the party but was widely respected by all. The Baron de Cotegipe, the senior Conservative in the Senate, had supported Rio Branco, but had strong links to the traditional hard core as well, and was thus deferred to by both wings. On 1871 and the Conservatives, see Needell, The Party of Order, chs. 6 and 7.

28 Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a historia, pp. 182–3; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, p. 123.

29 Otoni, Autobiografia, pp. 220–4; Pereira da Silva, Memorias do meu tempo, vol. 2, pp. 298–307; cf. Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 94–5, 105, 122–3, 128.

30 After his 1881 defeat Nabuco left for London, where he used the opportunity to organise European support for the Brazilian movement and to write one of its two or three greatest books of propaganda, O abolicionismo (1883). He returned in 1884 to take a leading part in the propaganda and support for the Dantas administration, but, like other Abolitionists, saw his election keenly disputed when Dantas successfully called for the Chamber's dissolution and the new elections in late 1884. Nabuco's election was contested and annulled. The Abolitionists brought him in to stand in another provincial district where the election had been delayed, and he was finally victorious in June 1885.

31 On the movement under Dantas, see Pereira da Silva, Memorias, vol. 2, pp. 280–1, 289–90; Patrocínio, Gazeta da Tarde, 20 Dec. 1884; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, 159–60; on the repression under Saraiva, see Patrocínio, Gazeta da Tarde, 17 June 1885. Patrocínio's articles appear in José do Patrocínio, Campanha abolicionista: coletânea de artigos (Rio de Janeiro, 1996), pp. 39–177. Nabuco's published correspondence provides good coverage of the general situation and his own electoral history; see, for example, his letters to barão de Penedo, Rio, 31 May 1884; Rio, 23 July 1884; Rio, 31 July 1884; to Rodolfo Dantas, Recife, 27 Oct. 1884; Recife, 2 Nov. 1884; to barão de Penedo, Recife, 28 Oct. 1884; 10 Dec. 1884; Pernambuco [Recife], 7 Jan. 1885; to João Clapp, Petrópolis, n.d. [very early May] 1885; to barão de Penedo, Rio, 17 May 1885; Recife, 24 June 1885; all in Joaquim Nabuco, Cartas a amigos (2 vols., São Paulo, 1949), vol. 1, pp. 122–38. On the Campos Abolitionists, see Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 191–2, and Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 197–8. Moraes (A campanha abolicionista, p. 105) claims there was an ebb in Abolitionist fervour in the immediate aftermath of the Saraiva bill, but this lasted a matter of months; see Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 187–9; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 147–8. On Antônio Bento's paulista radicalism, see Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 261–76; cf. Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 231–7, 242–5, on the resurgence and on Antônio Bento.

32 Pereira da Silva, Memorias do meu tempo, vol. 2, p. 315; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 183, 186–98; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 134–8, 147–59, ch. 8, focusing on judicial abolitionism; Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 233–6; Toplin, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, pp. 190–202.

33 Toplin, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, pp. 202–3, makes the point that the paulista frontier, as the most dynamic, lucrative and initially labour-poor region, would have recruited slave labour from either African-born captives or captives uprooted from other parts of Brazil: in effect, people less likely to be restrained by an established local moral economy.

34 Otoni, Autobiografia, pp. 273–6.

35 The origin of the term caifaz is unclear. Conrad, without citation, suggests that it might be associated with the New Testament figure, Caiaphas, high priest of the Jews, quoted in John (11: 49–50) as calling for Jesus' sacrifice: see Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, p. 242. Perhaps Conrad is right. As he points out, Antônio Bento, a charismatic figure, carefully used Christian motifs in his campaign, organising his agents out of a religious confraternity and publishing a journal called Redempção. Indeed, the text (John 11:49–52) is ‘Caiaphas … spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish” … he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.’ Perhaps, then, Antônio Bento meant to refer, through Caiaphas, to the need of his agents to sacrifice for the ‘nation … for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one’.

36 On the condemnation of flogging, see Otoni, Autobiografia, pp. 273–6; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, p. 199; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 215–16; Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, p. 237; and Toplin, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, pp. 198–200. The explanation in the text here is speculative, awaiting more research in the debates themselves and the archival correspondence. On Antônio Bento's work, see, for context, Pereira da Silva, Memorias do meu tempo, vol. 2, p. 311; and, on Antônio Bento's campaign itself, Afonso Celso, Oito anos de parlamento, p. 91; Nabuco, Minha formação, p. 227; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, p. 216; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 261–76, 304–9; Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 242–7; and Toplin, The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, pp. 209–19. See also Machado, O plano, ch. 4, particularly pp. 153–6, 161–2; and Costa, Da senzala à colônia, pp. 425, 430.

37 Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 159–60, discusses the emperor's trip to the province of São Paulo, accompanied by journalists and Antônio Prado, and how the emperor emphasised his abolitionism. This is a clear break from his initial support for Cotegipe as the prime minister capable of passing the Saraiva reform (see ibid., p. 123): ‘o que, para o momento, pareceu bastante a Pedro II’.

38 Thomas H. Holloway, ‘Immigration and Abolition: The Transition from Slave to Free Labor in the São Paulo Coffee Zone’, in Dauril Alden and Warren Dean (eds.), Essays Concerning the Socioeconomic History of Brazil and Portuguese India (Gainesville FL, 1977), pp. 150–77.

39 Otoni, Autobiografia, pp. 276–7; Nabuco, Minha formação, pp. 227–8, 233–4; Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a historia, pp. 169–70, 184–5; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 217–18; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 162–6. On the paulista labour predicament and the turn to abolitionism, see Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 228, 231, 248–59; Colson, ‘The Destruction of a Revolution’, vol. I, pp. 164–74, 186–94; and, especially, Holloway, ‘Immigration and Abolition’. Cotegipe's sense of the matter is glimpsed in Cotegipe to F. de P. Roiz Alvez [Francisco de Paula Rodrigues Alves], Rio, 12 Dec. 1887, Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro [hereafter IHGB], Coleção Rodrigues Alves, lata 808, pasta 64, in which he condemns Prado's actions for spreading anarchy and making successful resistance improbable. The late paulista shift to abolitionism was the basis for the post-facto glorification of the paulista elite as more modern than others. In fact, paulistas clung to slavery as long as they could, and moved to abolition and immigrant labour only when they were forced to do so. That they did, while other planters did not, stems from their having the capital to do so, rather than a more modern mentality: see the citations above and Dean, Rio Claro, chs. 4 and 5.

40 See ‘A questão militar’, in Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos, particularly pp. 123–4, 135–6, 143–61. For the emperor's illness, see Roderick J. Barman, Citizen Emperor: Pedro II and the Making of Brazil, 1825–91 (Stanford CA, 1999), pp. 332–3. For military opposition to slave flight, see also Otoni, Autobiografia, pp. 277–8; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 216–17, 225; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 167, 311–15. Duque-Estrada and Moraes make it plain that officers and others in the Escola Militar were among the first organised Abolitionists and that key officers played an increasing role in opposition to the cabinet. Indeed, as Thomas Holloway has reminded the author (personal communication, Oct. 2008), Abolitionism played a part in beginning the ‘Military Question’ that was critical to the end of the empire in 1889. Lieutenant Colonel Antônio de Sena Madureira was reprimanded for inviting the celebrated cearense Abolitionist, Francisco do Nascimento, to visit a Rio military school in 1884. In 1886, Sena Madureira published a critique of this reprimand, exacerbating the cabinet–military disputes: see Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a historia, pp. 124–33.

41 Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a historia, pp. 172–7, 185–6; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 226–7, 303; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 166–9, 319–20. Isabel, abolitionist in sentiment, had nonetheless supported Cotegipe for most of 1887, as Moraes makes clear. For her shift, see Roderick J. Barman, Princess Isabel of Brazil: Gender and Power in the Nineteenth Century (Wilmington DE, 2002), pp. 178–82. Duque-Estrada emphasises her concern with the impact of the instability on her succession. She was also allegedly moved by Nabuco's published account of his interview with the pope, who stated his intention to publish a pro-Abolitionist encyclical (Isabel was deeply pious): see Nabuco, Minha formação, pp. 261, 265, 176–7; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 303–5; and Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 319–20. The critical correspondence ending the cabinet is to be found in Arquivo Histórico do Museu Imperial, Petrópolis [hereafter AHMI], POB, M199, doc.9030: it includes Isabel to Ministro [de Justiça], [Petrópolis,] 3 March 1888; Samuel Wallace MacDowell [Ministro de Justiça] to Senhora [Isabel], Rio, 3 March 1888; Isabel to Ministro, Petropolis, 4 March 1888; MacDowell to Senhora [Isabel], Rio, 4 March 1888; MacDowell to Senhora [Isabel], Rio, 5 March 1888; Isabel to Ministro [de Justiça], Petropolis, 5 March 1888; Barão de Cotegipe to Senhora [Isabel], [Rio,] 5 March 1888; Samuel Wallace MacDowell to Senhora [Isabel], Rio, 8 March 1888; Barão de Cotegipe to Senhora [Isabel], Corte, 7 March 1888. The last letter, tendering the cabinet's resignation, indicates the regent's letter to MacDowell of 4 March as the critical document alluded to afterwards in public speeches as the basis for the decision. This letter's contents have not been disclosed until now. They may be summarised as indicating the regent's lack of confidence in the chief of police, in the justice minister and in the minister's reports. It also manifests Isabel's reliance on other sources of information.

42 Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a historia, pp. 176–7, 185–7; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 227–9; Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 324–6; Stein, Vassouras, pp. 250–5. João Alfredo's account of the call to power and the organisation of a cabinet is ‘Organisação do ministerio do 10 de março’, Arquivo João Alfredo, Biblioteca, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco [hereafter AJA], uncatalogued papers for 1888, 3o. pacote; see also Moraes, A campanha abolicionista, pp. 326–7.

43 The sense of crisis in the agricultural sector is clear in Cotegipe to F. de P. Roiz Alvez, Rio, 12 Dec. 1887, IHGB, Coleção Rodrigues Alves, lata 808, pasta 64; Otoni, Autobiografia, pp. 278–9; Duque-Estrada, A abolição, pp. 227–8; Monteiro, Pesquisas e depoimentos para a historia, pp. 169–70; Conrad, The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, pp. 261–2, 266–9. The prime minister's concern with abolition and the financial crisis is clear in Antônio Venâncio Cavalcante de Albuquerque to João Alfredo, Minas Novas, 20 March 1888; Arthur S. Hitchings to João Alfredo, 20 March 1888; José Vergueiro to João Alfredo, Fazenda Ybicaba, 23 March 1888; Inácio da Cunha Galvão to João Alfredo, Petropolis, 25 March 1888; M. A. Pimento Barros, 25 April 1888, ‘Situação financeira e economica’, all in AJA, uncatalogued papers for 1888, 3o. pacote.

44 Conrad alone notes Rebouças' cabinet contacts (The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, p. 271) and his submission of the critical draft of legislation on 7 April 1888, citing André Rebouças, Diário e notas autobiográficas (Rio de Janeiro, 1938), p. 311. He argues that it was the Liberals who forced the Abolitionist position forward, claiming that the Liberals had a Senate majority and made it clear on 7 May that they would obstruct any other cabinet solution. However, Affonso de E. Taunay, in O senado do Império (2nd edition, Brasilia, 1978 [1941]), pp. 126–30, shows that no Liberal majority existed in 1888. The assessment here is based instead upon archival documents: see Rebouças' ‘Projecto de Lei de Abolição’, in André Rebouças to João Alfredo, 21 May 1888, with the MSS for ‘Colonisação Nacional’, ‘Projecto de Regulamento para Coloniais Penitenciarias Agricolas’, and ‘Projecto de Lei de Serviços Ruraes’ in AJA, 3o. pacote, 1888, no number. Most importantly, see Rebouças, entries for 7 March, 8 March, 11 March, 30 March, 1 April, 2 April, 3 April, 7 April, 8 April, 9 April, 24 April, 25 April, 29 April, diário 1888 in CAR, lata 464. These detail the Petrópolis contacts with João Alfredo and Antônio Prado and Rebouças' frequent descents to Rio where he met with other key Abolitionists. The other Abolitionist with whom Prado consulted was José Carlos Rodrigues: see Rebouças' diary, addendum to entry for 30 March; indeed, Rebouças notes that Rodrigues was the real author of Prado's draft. Exactly who passed an account to Patrocínio, for publication and condemnation in the Cidade do Rio on 9 April (see Duque-Estrada, A abolição, p. 235), remains unclear. Moraes corroborates the impact, stating (A campanha abolicionista, p. 328) that the cabinet decision favouring immediate abolition was due to the Abolitionists' rejection of the conditions with which Prado's project burdened freedmen. That Prado's draft remained in play until after 20 April is clear; the final version was only submitted then: see Antonio Prado to João Alfredo, S. Paulo, 17 March 1888, in AJA, 1o. pacote 1888, 2502; Prado to João Alfredo, S. Paulo, 12 April 1888, ibid., 2507; Elias Antonio Pacheco Alves [Antonio Prado's brother-in-law] to João Alfredo, S. Paulo, 20 April 1888, ibid., 2508. Rebouças' diary entries note that on 29 April João Alfredo and Costa Pereira brought his abolition proposal to the imperial princess along with her official speech to open Parliament, indicating that the decision to accept Rebouças' solution was made by that date. Others have suggested various ministers as the author of the Golden Law: Ferreira Viana, Vieira da Silva or Costa Pereira. However, as Conrad argues, the text of Rebouças' proposal makes his authorship clear; it is nearly identical with that introduced on 8 May. The AJA MS text reads: ‘Projecto de Lei de Abolição: Arto. 1o. Fica abolida a escravidão no Imperio do Brazil. Art. 2 Ficam revogadas todas as disposições em contrario’.