SLAVERY. 



229 



numbers of thosehuman beings who suffer this 

 dreadful degradation. 



The Indian slavery has been for many years 

 abolished in Brazil, and the individuals who are 

 now in bondage in that country are Africans, 

 and their descendants on both sides, or indivi- 

 duals whose mothers are of African orign ; and 

 no line is drawn at which the near approach to 

 the colour and blood of the whites entitles the 

 child, whose mother is a slave, to freedom. I 

 have seen several persons who were to all ap- 

 pearance of white origin, still doomed to slavery. 



Slaves, however, in Brazil have many advan- 

 tages over their brethren in the British colonies. 

 The numerous holidays of which the Catholic 

 religion enjoins the observance *, give to the 

 slave many days of rest or time to work for his 

 own profit ; thirty-five of these, and the Sundays 

 besides, allow him to employ much of his time as 

 he pleases. Few masters are inclined to restrain 

 the right of their slaves to dispose of these days 

 as they think fit, or at any rate few dare, what- 

 ever their inclinations may be, to brave public 

 opinion in depriving them of the intervals from 

 work which the law has set apart as their own, 



* A Portuguese writer says, " When permission was given 

 in Portugal to work upon several of the holidays, the same 

 was not extended to Brazil from a principle of humanity, 

 that the slaves might not be deprived of any of their days of 

 rest." — Correio Braziliense, for December, 1815, p. 7'JH. 



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