288 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



capital town, having been freed on May 24, 1883. The Sociedade 

 Libertadora freed 122 slaves in one day in the towns of Baturit6, 

 Acarapi, and Sao Francisco. There are some two hundred or 

 three hundred such societies in Brazil. 



The gradual emancipation of Ceara had been carried on, as 

 elsewhere, before the total abolition was agreed to ; and I heard of 

 one slave-owner who died four years ago, and directed his heir-at- 

 law to free four hundred of his slaves in four years, which was 

 carried out in 1883. 



On July 10, 1884, the vast province of Amazonas declared 

 that all their slaves were free ; and on the 24th, in the first page 

 of the Gazeta da Tarde appeared, in letters more than an inch 

 long, the words AMAZONAS LIVRE — Amazons free. In a lead- 

 ing article that paper said, " Abolition, considered from the highest 

 moral point of view, is the expiation of slavery ; it is the restora- 

 tion of national dignity, the completion of the independence of 

 the Brazilian people." The Gazeta de Noticias of July 22nd 

 said — ■ 



" Without violence, without disturbance of economic or social order, the pro- 

 vince of Amazonas has paid its tribute nobly and gallantly to liberty and 

 civilization, which shortly will restore, by prosperity and riches, the small 

 sacrifice she has made them. ... It is to Dr. Theodureto Souto that this 

 province owes, in a great measure, the advantage it has secured. . . . The 

 liberation of Amazonas, which by itself would be one of the most im- 

 portant facts of our contemporary history, has to-day a significance of far 

 greater importance ; it is one more irrefutable testimony that in regard 

 to the servile element it is not now possible to delay or to recede. " 



It must, however, be remembered, when the northern pro- 

 vinces boast of being in advance of the southern as to abolition, 

 that a few years since some hundred thousand slaves were ex- 

 ported from the north and sold in the south. 



The great difficulty in total abolition, where many slaves are 

 in question, is as to obtaining the necessary continuous labour in 

 the plantations. When the slaves are selected and freed gradu- 

 ally, or educated up to freedom, they remain afterwards as 

 labourers on the old estates, and the work is not hindered. But 

 when compulsory labour is suddenly removed, the natural in- 

 dolence of the native asserts itself; and, finding that one or two 

 days' work in the week supplies enough money for him to keep 



