Since the publication of the Destruction of Brazilian Slavery, 1850–1888 by Robert Conrad in 1972, very few scholars (among them Kim D. Butler and Wlamyra Albuquerque) have published monographs examining the process of emancipation and the period of post-emancipation in Brazil. Even those authors’ works, along with books by Camillia Cowling and Angela Alonso, have privileged either São Paulo and Salvador, or the then national capital, Rio de Janeiro.
Celso Thomas Castilho breaks this trend in scholarship by examining the abolitionist movement in Recife, Pernambuco. This city was the third largest Brazilian slave port during the era of the Atlantic slave trade, and situated in one of the greatest sugar-producing provinces of the country. Castilho uses Recife and other towns in Pernambuco as a lens to address the emancipation movements both at the national and international levels.
To explore a great array of primary sources, such as legislative and legal records, newspapers, private correspondence, and plays, Castilho has divided the book into six chapters, along with an introduction and a conclusion. The first chapter, “‘Death to Slavery:’ Sparking the Abolition Debate,” examines the emergence of the public abolitionist movement in Brazil during the late 1860s. The passing of the Free Womb Law in 1871 marked a new chapter of the abolitionist movement. Among the sugarcane planters, it also provoked strong reactions, which Castilho explores in his second chapter. The third chapter not only deepens the analysis of these reactions, but also follows the development and decline of abolitionist societies in Pernambuco.
The fourth and fifth chapters look at abolitionist debates during the last decade of slavery in Brazil. Castilho discusses the prospects and hindrances to the achievement of citizenship in light of voting restrictions introduced during the period, which especially affected black freed and free populations. The sixth chapter explores the debates on emancipation and citizenship in the aftermath of the passage of the Golden Law, which abolished slavery in Brazil in 1888. Castilho shows how the politics of memory of slavery and emancipation were related to post-emancipation political practices. The conclusion connects the abolitionist debates in Brazil and the United States by establishing links based on the issue of public memory of slavery.
Throughout the book, although highlighting other dimensions of the abolitionist struggle, including legal strategies and artistic manifestations, Castilho underscores that slaves themselves were the main activists in the fight for the abolition of slavery. He shows how slave owners reacted to slaves’ public demonstrations with fear, by denouncing them as disruptive of the public order. In addition, Castilho gives voice to a variety of historical actors who played key roles in promoting the abolitionist struggle in the Brazilian public sphere. More important, Castilho shows that the problem of race and the fight for citizenship were central elements in the discourses and actions of black and white abolitionists in nineteenth-century Brazil. He underscores that beyond the abolition of slavery, these interventions ultimately contributed to reshape the ways in which Brazilian social actors exerted political citizenship.
Beautifully written, this is a groundbreaking book for several reasons. First, it skillfully examines the Brazilian abolitionist movement from an international perspective. Second, it is among the very first books to pay serious attention to the preponderant role of white and black women in the abolitionist movement in Brazil. Third, the book addresses gradualist abolition and radical emancipation not as opposite trends but as approaches that historically were combined.
This book is certainly an important and very welcome addition to the scholarship on slavery and emancipation. Written in clear language, it will be accessible not only to undergraduate and graduate students studying Brazil, but also to all readers interested in understanding the history of slavery and emancipation in the Americas.
