^^^H >&^&§$& ^^>^?1 J - ^M 



288 



SLAVERY. 



they receive from each other, in their daily 

 occupations. * 



From the vastness of the country, it might 

 be supposed that if a slave escapes from his 

 master, the chances would be against his return, 

 but this is not the case. The Africans particu- 

 larly are generally brought back ; they are soon 

 distinguished by their manner of speaking the 

 Portuguese language ; and if any one of them 

 cannot give a good account of himself, he will 

 not be allowed to remain long unmolested, for 

 the profit arising from the apprehension of a 

 runaway slave is considerable. Besides, the 

 manumitted African generally continues to re- 

 side in the neighbourhood of the estate upon 

 which he has served as a slave ; so that when a 

 man of this description, that is, an African, 

 comes without being known, to settle in a dis- 

 trict, suspicion immediately arises that he is not 

 free. The manumitted Creoles remove to where 

 they are not known, because they do not wish 

 that the state in which they were born should 

 reach their new place of residence. An African 

 must have been brought to Brazil as a slave, 

 and therefore his situation of a freeman proves 

 that his character is good, or he could not have 



* A small proprietor in Brazil is a man who possesses* 

 from two to ten slaves. A large proprietor, upon an average, 

 in. the part of the country of which I may speak, possesses 

 from twenty to sixty slaves. 



