The Chamber of Deputies approves the abolition bill

On 10 March 1888, João Alfredo Correia de Oliveira formed a new imperial cabinet more willing to pursue the end of slavery. The cabinet change followed years of mass abolitionist mobilization,...

An editorial titled “Não se iludam os jornais” criticized proposals that would declare people free yet bind them to former owners’ labor. It described organized mass flight despite police blockades...

A later account cited in scholarship describes a major operation in Recife in which 119 enslaved people were embarked for escape toward the North. Their movement followed years of fugitives, free...

On 3 May 1888, Princess Regent Isabel opened the parliamentary session with a speech urging lawmakers to remove slavery from Brazilian law. The address framed abolition as a national aspiration and...

On 8 May 1888, Minister of Agriculture Rodrigo Augusto da Silva presented the government’s proposal for the complete abolition of slavery to the Chamber of Deputies. The bill moved rapidly in response...

On 11 May 1888, the proposal approved by the Chamber reached the Senate, where a special committee was formed to report on it. The expedited review brought the question to its final legislative stage....

On 13 May 1888, the Senate approved the abolition bill and Princess Regent Isabel sanctioned Law no. 3,353, the Lei Áurea. Its two brief articles ended slavery in law across Brazil. The law did not...

In Fortaleza, the abolitionist association Perseverança e Porvir held a public session celebrating the end of slavery in Brazil. The meeting, attended by representatives of different social groups,...

Decree 528 declared entry generally open to people considered able to work, but excepted Indigenous people from Asia and Africa, who could enter only with authorization from Congress under...

The Penal Code promulgated by Decree 847 placed capoeira in a chapter on “vagrants and capoeiras” and prescribed imprisonment for practicing it in public. Capoeira had developed through African...