226 CHAPTER 10 RACE, NATION, AND THE MEANING OF FREEDOM, 1821–1888
of color—not to mention slaves themselves—all of
whom demanded emancipation. In 1870, Spain
freed all the newborn and aged slaves of Cuba and
Puerto Rico, leaving Brazil the only nation in the
Americas to retain slavery in its original colonial
form. Fearing the perpetual social instability prom-
ised by the slaves’ defi ant resistance to slavery, a
conservative ministry soon yielded to pressure and
pushed the Rio Branco Law through parliament in
- This measure freed all newborn children of
slave women but obligated their masters to care for
them until they reached the age of eight. At that
time, owners could either release the children to
the government in return for an indemnity or re-
tain them as laborers until they reached the age of
twenty-one. The law also freed all slaves belonging
to the state or crown and created a fund to be used
for the manumission of slaves.
The Rio Branco Law was a tactical retreat de-
signed to put off a fi nal solution of the slavery prob-
lem. As late as 1884, when Brazil still had over
1 million slaves, only 113 had been freed by this
means.
Abolitionist leaders denounced the law as a sham
and illusion, and advanced ever more vigorously
the demand for total and immediate emancipation.
From 1880 on, the antislavery movement developed
great momentum. Concentrated in the cities, it drew
strength from the process of economic, social, and
intellectual modernization under way there. To the
new urban groups, slavery was an anachronism,
glaringly incompatible with modernity.
Among the slave owners themselves, divisions
of opinion appeared. In the north, where slavery
had become economically ineffi cient, a growing
number of planters shifted to wage labor, drawingSlaves drying coff ee on a plantation in Terreiros, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, about
- [Courtesy of Hack Hoff enburg]