The Eusébio de Queirós Law was enacted in September 1850, during the reign of d. Peter II, and decreed the definitive ban on the slave trade in Brazil. This was the second law of its kind in Brazil (the first had been passed in 1831), and pressure from England under the Brazil made that the law was, in fact, applied with the State acting harshly in the repression of the slave trade.
Basically, the law stated that Brazilian or foreign ships that had slaves on board, or evidence that there were had slaves as trade goods would be considered slave traders and seized by the authorities Brazilian companies. The Eusébio de Queirós Law was accompanied by a complementary law approved in 1854, called Nabuco de Araújo Law, which reinforced punishments for those who covered up the African slave trade.
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Historical context
The end of the slave trade was a subject that was under intense discussion in our country throughout the first half of the 19th century. With the
independence, in 1822, Brazil, in order to obtain international recognition from England, assumed commitments to end the slave trade. This agreement with England was a extension of agreements carried out between England and Portugal during the Joanine Period.Brazil even tried to get rid of pre-established agreements on the issue of the slave trade, but it was forced to accept due to pressure from England. The commitment given by Brazil was to enact a law prohibiting the slave trade until the year 1830, but the negotiations led to the decree of bean law, approved on November 7, 1831.
The expectation for the prohibition of the slave trade made that in 1829, the number of Africans brought to Brazil increased considerably. Despite the traffickers' apprehension about the possibility of an end to the slave trade, this type of trade has not ended, but, on the contrary, it has regained its strength a few years after the Feijó law was approved.
Traffickers continued to bring Africans to Brazil in large numbers, and Brazilian authorities turned a blind eye to the situation. In the period between 1831 and 1845, about 470 thousand Africans landed in Brazil as slaves|1|. The situation was so wide open that there were Brazilian parliamentarians who tried to revoke the 1831 law.
This situation displeased England, deeply, and the English Parliament decided to act to make the situation harder for Brazil and this resulted in the approval of a law called billAberdeen.
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Bill Aberdeen
Bill Aberdeen was a bill proposed by lordAberdeen, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in England. Lord Aberdeen's law aimed to create a mechanism that would force Brazil to effectively combat the slave trade and was thus approved under the name of SlavetradesuppressionAct (Slave Trade Suppression Act, in a free translation) or simply billAberdeen.
This law gave the British Royal Navy rights to monitor the Atlantic Ocean for slave ships. All vessels sighted dealing in slaves would be seized and members of those vessels would be tried in England as pirates. This law even gave the British Navy the right to perform this function in Brazilian territorial waters.
The law generated deep dissatisfaction in Brazil, mainly because it gives the right to British vessels to violate the territorial waters of Brazil, which put sovereignty at stake Brazilian. Advocates of trafficking and nationalists criticized England, claiming she had no right to take such action.
Bill Aberdeen made relationships difficult between Brazil and England so that issues related to a declaration of war against the British began to be debated. Naturally, this debate frightened many, as Brazil did not have the capacity to face the British in a conflict.
Tension remained high and peaked in 1850, when an English vessel was attacked by a Brazilian fort while towing slave ships trapped off the Brazilian coast. In response, the British set fire to two slave ships off the Brazilian coast and tempers rose.
as the Brazil had no international support to his cause (the slave trade had already been banned in much of the world) and as the threat of war was great, the Brazilian authorities decided to give in and the debate to ban the slave trade gained momentum in politics national.
A new law was proposed in 1850, which aimed to ratify what had been determined in the 1831 law and declared the prohibition of the slave trade in the country. The law, in turn, had its pragmatic side and, in order to meet the interests of slaveholders, determined that Africans who landed in Brazil, from 1831 onwards, would continue as slaves.
The author of the law, the Minister of Justice Eusébio de Queirós, had a history of condescension with the slave trade and, as chief of police of the cut between 1833 and 1844, allowed numerous clandestine landings to be carried out on the coast of Rio de January|2|.
Thus, the Eusébio de Queirós Law was approved, on September 4, 1850, within the aforementioned terms: the prohibition of the slave trade, but slaves illegally landed in the country, after the 1831 law, continued to be slaves. This law had an effective application and was reinforced in 1854 known as Nabuco de Araújo Law, which punished those who covered up the disembarkation of Africans in Brazil.
With the law of 1850, trafficking had a short life in Brazil and it's practically over in 1856. Data brought by historian Carlos Eduardo Moreira de Araújo|3| suggest that 38,000 Africans were landed in Brazil between 1850 and 1856, and historian Luiz Felipe Alencastro|4| he says that between 1851 and 1856 this number was 6900 Africans, which already shows this significant drop.
With the prohibition of the slave trade, the slave sales between provinces were strengthened and the Southeastern provinces began to acquire slaves from other regions such as the Northeast, for example. The end of the trafficking of Africans made the traffickers use their money to invest in other activities, such as the construction of railroads.
abolitionist laws
With the prohibition of the slave trade, the interprovincial sale of slaves was reinforced.
With the prohibition of the slave trade, the source of renewal of the slave population in Brazil was closed and a countdown to the end of slavery in our country began. This was a slow and gradual process – according to the interests of the slaveholding elites – and was marked by the approval of two laws known as abolitionist laws.
law of the free womb: approved in 1871, it decreed that the children of slaves born from that year onwards would be free after the age of 8 or 21 years. The choice of the date of his definitive release would be for the slave master. If he decided to free his slave's son at the age of 8, he would receive compensation of 600 milreis.
Sexagenarian Law: approved in 1885, it decreed that every slave who completed 60 years of age would be considered free, after working for another three years as compensation to his master.
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Golden Law
The transition until the decree of abolition of slavery it spanned 38 years and had the very important involvement of the abolitionist movement. This movement gained strength from the 1870s and acted in various areas of society to mobilize forces in defense of abolition. The slaves' resistance through escapes and revolts was also very important.
The joining of efforts of the abolitionist movement and the slave reform made the Empire decree the abolition of slavery through the Golden Law, approved by the Senate and signed by the Princess Isabel, on May 13, 1888.
|1| ARAÚJO, Carlos Eduardo Moreira. End of trafficking. In.: SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and GOMES, Flávio (eds.). Dictionary of slavery and freedom. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, p. 232.
|2| Idem, p. 235.
|3| ALENCASTRO, Luiz Felipe de. Africa, numbers of the Atlantic traffic. In.: SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and GOMES, Flávio (eds.). Dictionary of slavery and freedom. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, p. 57.
|4| ARAÚJO, Carlos Eduardo Moreira. End of trafficking. In.: SCHWARCZ, Lilia Moritz and GOMES, Flávio (eds.). Dictionary of slavery and freedom. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2018, p. 236.
