This short volume is a collection of essays discussing several aspects of slavery in Brazil. Although the essays cover a variety of problems, the book emphasizes a central theme: the economic structure of the slave system, and the role England played in weakening this system after accomplishing the end of the slave traffic in 1850.
Particularly noteworthy is the author’s review of Brazilian scholarship on slavery in the first essay, his discussion of the causes of the abolition of slavery in the second, and his analysis of British influence on Brazilian abolitionists in the sixth. In these three essays the author’s familiarity with the economic history of Brazil and English economic imperialism in Latin America during the nineteenth century is clearly demonstrated.
Most of the essays have been published before by scholarly journals in the United States. Translating them into Portuguese and publishing them in a single, handy volume is a welcome service.