Book, Free Africans the abolition of the slave trade in Brazil[LS]

The integrated story of the Africans brought after the prohibition of trafficking and the social and political changes that affected their lives. On November 7, 1831, the law was enacted that prohibited the importation of slaves into the country and punished everyone involved in the activity. The legal advance was due, at least in part, to the pressure exerted by the British Crown. As we know, the Brazilian State ended up being complicit in the illegal trafficking of Africans and the enslavement of their victims in the following years. Despite having had an important impact on the advancement of the abolitionist movement, the sanctioned imposition would, in the end, be “for the English to see”. In Free Africans, Beatriz G. Mamigonian takes the 1831 law as the narrative axis, which overlaps with the analysis of the experience of former slaves, their administration by the imperial government and the effects of smuggling. Based on unpublished research, the book advances to the abolitionist campaign in the 1880s, when the most radical activists forced the recognition of all illegally enslaved Africans as “free Africans”.