Pedro I abdicates amid popular mobilization

On 23 November 1826, Brazil and Britain signed a convention committing Brazil to end the African slave trade after a three-year transition. The agreement became enforceable in 1830, but Brazilian...

On 17 December 1826, troops and militia attacked the Quilombo do Urubu, a community near Salvador that included fugitives, freed people, and Indigenous residents. Contemporary police correspondence...

The imperial law of 1 October 1828 reshaped municipal councils and assigned them responsibilities in local administration, including public works, markets, streets, and public order. In slaveholding...

The law of 13 September 1830 regulated written service contracts by free Brazilian and foreign workers, with penalties for breach and provisions that could compel performance. It belongs to a wider...

Rio’s municipal code of postures regulated street life, commerce, sanitation, and public order. Such rules shaped the conditions under which enslaved people hired out their labor, including porters,...

On 7 November 1831, an imperial law declared that Africans brought into Brazil from abroad would be free and penalized those involved in the traffic. The law followed the 1826 treaty, but the state...

On 12 April 1832, the Regency issued regulations for carrying out the 1831 law against the slave trade. The decree gave police and judges procedures to investigate suspected trafficking and identify...

On 13 May 1833, enslaved people on farms owned by the Junqueira family began a revolt at Fazenda Campo Alegre in Carrancas. Led by enslaved people including Ventura and others whose names survive...

Francisco de Paula Brito, a Black printer, launched O Homem de Côr in Rio de Janeiro. The paper challenged racial exclusion and insisted that constitutional claims to citizenship should apply to Black...

O Crioulinho began publication in Rio in the same charged political season as other Black periodicals. Its appearance shows that O Homem de Côr was not an isolated voice: printers and readers built...