Portuguese participation in the slave trade^135with British and Portuguese members were set up to try the crews of vessels
apprehended. These tribunals were set up in British as well as Portuguese
territories : namely at Luanda, Boa Vista, Cape of Good Hope and Jamaica.
The naval patrol responsible for the surveillance of the trade increased in size :
in a single year, from April 1846 to April 1847, fifty-eight cruisers—British
and Portuguese, but also French—were recorded as entering Luanda harbour.
The machinery for enforcing the prohibition had been adopted as the
result of laborious diplomatic negotiations : but many difficulties remained to
be overcome in practice before the slave trade as a whole, and in Portuguese
Africa in particular, could actually be stopped. For one thing, there was no
certainty that these measures would succeed in eradicating the habits of cen-
turies ; and furthermore two types of slave trade had grown up, with a home
market and an overseas market. The former gave rise to disguised forms of
slavery, or at any rate forced labour. The latter, which resulted from the Atlan-
tic trade, was hardly likely to disappear until the slave-owning nations gave
up using this form of labour. The profits being higher every time, the slave
traders, who had well-organized networks of agents both at home and over-
seas, naturally found it hard to resist the appeal of gain: especially since
smugglers could always shelter under the flags of countries not liable to checking
by the naval patrol.
At the time of abolition there was a clash of opposing interests in Portu-
guese Africa : on the one hand, those of the government, which for various eco-
nomic and foreign-policy reasons genuinely desired abolition, and, on the other,
those of the traders, who continued their smuggling with the connivance of the
Brazilian and Cuban planters. It is undeniable, however, that up to 1842 the
slave trade had had the benefit of a good deal of complicity at the highest
levels, and that the Portuguese administration in Africa was riddled with
corruption. Officials at Luanda found it hard to resist the temptation of easy
money. Nevertheless, thanks to the energy and integrity of several governors
(the most notable example being Pedro Alexandrino da Cunha, Governor
from 1845 to 1848), the slave trade in Angola was eventually eradicated. His
predecessor, on the other hand, had been relieved of his office, having come
under strong suspicion of being implicated with the slave-traders.
One of the main centres of the slave trade was still the Congo area,
together with the coast of Loango, Cabinda, Molembo, Ambriz, etc., where
slave-traders of all nationalities came to get their supplies. Portugal wished to
occupy this area, and one of the subsidiary reasons she adduced, in addition
to her claim to 'historic rights', was the abolition of the slave trade. This ques-
tion dominated Anglo-Portuguese relations for more than a quarter of a
century.
Meanwhile, in July 1850, in the face of strong opposition, the Brazilian
Parliament passed the abolition law; and, for the first time, the government