INTRODUCTION. 
7 
There is no doubt but that the slave population of Brazil is gi-adually 
decreasing, in spite of the official census that says the contrary; the 
^ number of births being greatly below the number of deaths, and the 
coiuitry not having received any fi-csh supplies from Africa these twenty 
years. By the convention vith England the slave trade ought to have 
' ceased ever since 182G ; but the gi’eat gains were too tempting an 
inducement. Any one who succeeded in safely lauding his freight of 
“ ebony ” on any jjuint of the Brazilian shore became at once a wealtliy 
“ man; so, notwitlistanding the English cruisers tliat out of a hundred 
slave-vessels ccaild hai-dly captiu-o more than three, on account of the 
great extent of the Brazilian and African coasts, about 28,000 slaves (at 
a moderate estimate) were annually brought over. Only during the 
■ reign of Don Pedro II. Avas the supply stopped, owing chiefly to the 
V urgency of England, by searching on the plantations in the interior for 
'• negros novos (new negroes), and by imposing heavy fines on the culprits, 
both sellers and buyers. The consequence was that the price of the 
“black-ware ” rose six and sevenfold, from 300 to 2,000 milreis. 
From this moment, and still more after the slaA^e-emancipation in the 
United States, every clear-sighted Brazilian must have felt that the 
: » time was come for rooting out from his own country that hateful relic 
t of barbarous ages, and measm-es Averc taken accordingly. By the ncAV 
L- ' law all children born to slaves (the condition of the mother always 
*■' determining that of the childi-en), after the first of January, 1872, are to 
r» be free on attaining then’ tAventieth year. Until then they are to serve 
, their oAvners as compensation for the care taken of them in their infancy. 
This measure, though not destroyuig the evil at one blow, but keeping 
it up lor a number of years, must yet gain the approA'al of every one 
aaEo has spent any time in a slave-trading country, and has seen the 
, , difficulties of the position. A sudden emancipation of the slaves, if it 
I, could be effected at all Avithout entirely ruining the present OAVuiers, 
would certainly be attended Avith the saddest consequences, not only 
, / to the productions of the coimtry in general, but also to the liberated 
,1 slaves themseUes. 
; If it be a difficult task to educate the rising generation to the degree 
of obtaining then- labour Avithout absolute compulsion, it is an irapos- 
, ^ sible one as to the grown-up slave. Besides this, the evil consequences 
of the abominable institution aaIU be felt for long years after its entire 
abolition, in the lax morality of the families, in the total Avant of 
