29 AUGUST 1863, Page 12

SLAVERY IN BRAZIL.

ATTENTION has lately been much directed to Brazil; but there is a great want of definite information in England about the Brazilian Empire. It is known that the slave trade, which formerly gave rise to constant disagreeable discussions be- tween the English and Brazilian Governments, has of late years ceased to exist ; but few people know what is the state of things as to slavery in Brazil.

The number of slaves in Brazil at the present time is, according to the best available information, estimated at upwards of three mil- lions, in a total population of, at most, seven millions and a half, which includes half a million of Indians. The white population is reckoned at not more than 1,200,000; the remainder of the free population being coloured, of mixed blood, European and negro or European and Indian. In 1797 Sir George Staunton, who had visited Rio de Janeiro on his way to China with Lord Macartney's embassy, estimated the negroes in Brazil at 600,000. In 1806 a French writer, Al. de Beauchamp, reckoned them at a million and a half. There has been no importation of Africans into Brazil for the last ten years, and cholera has of late years sometimes made frightful havoc among them. Yet there are, at this moment, between three millions and three millions and a half of slaves in Brazil. By treaty with England the slave trade became illegal in 1830; yet from that time to 1850 there was a constant large importation_ Sir T. F. Buxton, in his work on the slave trade, published in 1840, reckoned the then annual importation at 78,000. Lord Howden, Minister at Rio de Janeiro, reported an importation of upwards of 60,000 in 1847. A million of slaves were imported into Brazil in the twenty years from 1830 to 1850. Since 1850 the Brazilian Government have suppressed the slave trade, and it is now extinct ; but whether it might not be revived, if Lord Malmesbury's advice to repeal Lord Aber- deen's Act were followed, is another question. It is that Act which gives to English Admiralty courts the power to condemn Brazilian slave-trade vessels for piracy, the Brazilian Govern- ment having agreed by treaty with England that slave trade by Brazilian subjects should be so treated ; and it was the stringent execution of that Act in 1850, when Lord Palmerston was Foreign Minister, and Sir James Hudson Minister in Braid, which pro- cured the suppression of the traffic by the Brazilian Government. Solate as December, 1861, her Majesty's Charge d'Affaires in Brazil has written to Lord Russell :— "The external slave trade has undoubtedly ceased. There has been, I believe, no attempt to land slaves on the shores of Brazil for several years, and it is frequently said that a renewal of the traffic is impossible. This may turn out to be quite true ; but how far the iippossibility arises from any real aversion to slavery, or sense of its moral wrong, or of the debasing influence it exercises wherever instituted, is quite another question, and I much fear that the feeling of a very large class in Brazil is rather a sullen ac- quiescence in a state of things which, owing to external pressure, and public opinion, and other causes, cannot be helped, than from any conviction of the evils of the old system of negro importation-.'r The state of things, then, in Brazil, after the suppression of the slave trade, is that there are 3,000,000 of slaves and only 1,200,000- whites in a population of seven millions (excluding Indians) ; i.e., there are three slaves to four free men, white and coloured, not savages, and five slaves to every two whites. A recent writer in the Work of the Christiqn Church, for April, 1863, who gives a sad picture of the moral and religious state of Brazil, calls attention to these relative numbers of slaves and freemen in language which will do good, if it awakens the Brazilian Government to serious reflection :— " In Brazil the proportion of the white to the coloured popula-

tion is nearly the reverse of what it is in the United States. In truth, these dreadful proportions of slavery and of the inter- mixture of races have produced a demoralization of the whole Brazilian nation, to which there is scarcely a parallel to be found. What the future of this vast empire will be nobody can foretell ; but there can be no doubt that ere long Brazil will have to pass through a crisis, moral and material, the consequences of which cannot be calculated now. When we consider to how great an extent Brazil is dependent on slave labour, and how deeply slavery and the tremendous disproportion between the negro and white population have demoralized the whole nation, we may

imagine that the crisis which is now preparing in Brazil, and which will break out as soon as the strife in North America has been brought to an end, will be a terrible one indeed."

This is not a new alarm. In the slave-trade coriespondence presented to Parliament in 1848 is a remarkable despatch of Lord Howden, addressed to Lord Palmerston, from Rio de Janeiro, which contains the following pawage I should say that the mass of the white population here, as regards the possible fate awaiting this country, may be divided into four classes. 1st, those who, more or less removed from the stir of daily life and active interests, do really feel a disquietude about the future, but say very little about it. This class is very small. 2nd, those who think, as the first class, that there will be a day of retribution, who also think that the present state of things will last their time, and are, therefore, content. This class is larger. 3rd, those who do not think about it at all, and who, with all the careless idiosyncrasy of the southern nations of Europe, and all the superinduced apathy of this climate, go on buying slaves because they have bought slaves before. 4th, those who reason and tell you that the apprehension is a mere bugbear ; for that the constant mortality among the slaves is so certain, the distrust among the blacks races so great, the hatred between them and the mulattoes so invincible, the objects to be gained so little com- prehended, and the means of concerting any object in this thinly- peopled country so impossible, that no legitimate fear can be entertained unless a revolution be prepared and aided by foreigners, which is a contingency that no buying or selling on their part can prevent. I have not the least doubt that there are many persons who entertain the conviction of danger, and who foresee that revolution which it will be a miracle if this country escapes ; but these persons do not give publicity to unpopular opinions, and when they do open their minds they do so rather to foreigners (who do not require the information) than to their own countrymen, whose eyes they might open to advantage."

The same alarm is sounded in Mr. Gardner's valuable work, published in 1846, "Travels in the Interior of Brazil :"— " A general rise of the black population is much dreaded in Brazil, which is not unreasonable, when the great proportion it bears to the white is taken into consideration. Were they all united by one common sympathy, this would have happened long ago, but the hostile prejudices existing among the different races of Africans have hitherto prevented it. In such an event the white population will be sure to suffer from the savage rapacity of the mixed races, especially those who have African blood in them ; for it is to be remarked that the worst of criminals spring from this class, who inherit in some degree the superior intellect of the white, while they retain much of the cunning and ferocity of the black ; they are mostly free, and bear no good-will towards the whites, who form the smaller part of the entire population."

The number of slaves in Brazil has not sensibly diminished, if at all, notwithstanding the cessation of importations for ten years and the mortality from cholera. A natural consequence of the cessation of the slave trade is greater care about breeding of slaves. Mr. Christie wrote to Lord Russell, August 5, 1860 :— " It is probable that the whole number of slaves has not been diminished, and that the number is now on the increase, and will continue increasing. Since the abolition of the slave trade, slave- owners have looked to multiplying by births, and in a few years the births from slaves since 1850 will begin to influence the supply of slave labour. For some years the influence on the supply from that cause must be slight ; but, ultimately, there will probably be a steady increase in the supply of slave labour. A black child begins at the age of ten to assist in the coffee plantations, but he cannot be reckoned an efficient labourer before fifteen. The average term of life of a slave in Brazil is computed at thirty-five years. Before the abolition of the slave trade the average of available service of a slave used to be reckoned at fifteen years, but owing to the improved care of the slaves it is now reckoned at twenty years. The diminution in the number of slaves by emancipation, purchased or given, seems to be very trifling. The great increase in price of slaves since 1850 has necessarily made it more difficult to purchase freedom, and has diminished enfranchise- menta by testamentary disposition."

Is anything being done in Brazil to prepare the way gradually for emancipation and avert the danger to the State which lies in those three millions of slaves? Absolutely nothing. The Brazilian

Legislature has even refused, three years successively, in 1860, 1861, and 1862, to accept a measure proposed by a senator,

Silveira da Motta, for getting rid of some of the greatest aggrava- tions of slavery. The objects of this proposed measure were, 1st, to abolish public sales of slaves by auction ; 2nd, to prohibit in the sale of slaves the separation of husband from wife, and of children under age from their parents ; 3rd, in cases of decease of owners of slaves, where there are no heirs in direct line, either parents or children, and where creditors are otherwise fully secured, to authorize the manumission of slaves if they can pur- chase their freedom at a price fixed by a magistrate ; 4th, to en- courage the sale of slaves for agricultural employment in the country by exempting sales for such purpose from the tax on sales ; the object here being to diminish the number of slaves in the cities and promote the employment of free men in domestic service. A more moderate measure than this can hardly be con- ceived; it has been opposed by the Government, very slightly supported, and been shelved or rejected every session during the last three years.

The same senator, Silveira da Motta, has honourably distin- guished himself by denouncing, though with similar want of suc- cess, an internal slave trade which is still carried on in Brazil, and which has also been the subject of fruitless remonstrances from her Majesty's Government. Mr. Christie reported to Lord Russell, September 30, 1862, that nearly forty thousand slaves have been deported from the northern provinces of Brazil to Rio during the last ten years and a half. Mr. Christie adds :— " This number does not comprise the slaves who may have come with their masters and been afterwards sold in this province, or those who may have been sent by land. In most of the northern provinces heavy duties, from 100 to 200 milreis (10/. to 20/.) a head, have been imposed on export of slaves. To evade these duties many have been sent by land, the journeys being sufficiently toilsome. These slaves have been principally absorbed in the coffee plantations of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Geraes, and some have gone to St. Paul's. There can be no doubt that this internal slave traffic involves the cruelties of forced removal from home and separation of families. Attempts have been made on one or two occasions by independent members of the Legislature to obtain the prohibition of this internal traffic, which they have denounced as resembling in iniquity the foreign slave trade. But the general Legislature has never done anything in the matter. Mr. Scarlett, in 1858, under instructions from the Earl of Clarendon, made a strong appeal to the Brazilian Government to stop this traffic, but without result."

The following is an extract of a speech of Senhor Silveira da Motta on this subject in the Brazilian Senate, May 17th, 1861 :— " We all know that the North is being depopulated of slaves, and that only to Rio de Janeiro, since 1850, 36,000 slaves have come. That is what is officially known. Many passengers from the North, in order to avoid payment of the impost at the places they come from, bring slaves as servants, who are here sold as a resource of those passengers, because, instead of bringing money, they bring negroes to be sold in this great market. Among the slaves trans- ported from the North I have seen some in the market of Rio de Janeiro who are children of ten and twelve years old, have left their parents in the North, and are sold here. A slave from the North told me that he was married in the province where he was sold, and that his wife remained there and he was sent here. This is what I have in view to prevent."

It has lately become generally known that the Brazilian Govern- ment retain in bondage, and perseveringly refuse to give the English Government information about, some thousands of liberated Africans who have been consigned to them, under treaty, to be taken care of and treated as free men. The number of these free Africans is estimated roughly at ten thousand ; and it is further stated, in the correspondence laid before Parliament, that there are a million of the slaves now in Brazil who were either illegally imported since 1830 or have been born of those so imported, and who are all entitled to freedom. If the Brazilian Government wished to make a beginning of emancipation, they might, as; indeed, in any casa they should, begin with justice to the free Africans, and to those illegally imported. But there is not the least sign of a desire in the Brazilian Government to do what is right in these matters ; and this the English public ought to know. Mr. Baillie, Chargé d'Affaires, wrote to Lord Russell, December 6, 1861 :—

"Numbers of these Africans (the liberated Africins) have been, and are still being, fraudulently consigned to hopeless and irretriev- able slavery. The conduct of the Government in conniving at such a state of things will, perhaps, be less wondered at when it is remembered that members of the Cabinet are frequently personally interested. For instance, I am informed that the head of the present Administration, the Marquis of Caxias, has not less than twenty-three or twenty-four free blacks in his service, and the same may be said of many other Brazilians distinguished by their position and influence in this country. As far as my own obser-

vations go, I have been unable to discern any desire or tendency towards the abolition of slavery in Brazil, or even the mitigation of its principal evils. The internal slave trade is carried on as much as ever, and will probably progress with the increasing demand for coffee, for the cultivation of which blacks are con- tinually imported from the northern provinces. The so-called emancipated blacks are constantly transferred against their will from crhe part of the Empire to another, often under circumstances of great hardship, and to be engaged in the severest labour on their arrival."

We conclude with a similar statement by Mr. Christie, addressed to Lord Russell, May 3, 1862 :— "The slave trade and the abolition of slavery are two distinct questions, and I have on several occasions reported that there are at present no signs of a disposition to prepare for the abolition of Slavery, or to mitigate its evils. The general unwillingness to touch the question of slavery is fear, which, though it must be regretted, may be understood, as to the supply of labour and in- terference with property. I have, on various occasions, suggested to your lordship the importance of endeavouring, if possible, to conciliate and persuade the Brazilian Government to measures leading to the ultimate extinction of slavery, and in the mean time Mitigating its evils. The conduct of the Brazilian Government about the free blacks is not to their honour, and is such as to throw doubts on the singleness and purity of their motives in the abolition of the slave trade. Your lordship will, I hope, excuse me for suggesting that the conduct of the Brazilian Government about the free blacks furnishes an answer, if her Majesty's Government desire to use it, to the Brazilian complaints that, notwithstanding the entire cessation of the slave trade, the Aberdeen Act remains unrepealed. And another similar answer may be derived from another question,—the number of slaves in Brazil, imported since 1830, in violation of law and treaty, and still held in slavery without any effort or interference of the Brazilian authorities to terminate their illegal bondage."