In the Name of Freedom: Abolition of the Slave Trade, the Law and the Brazilian Branch of African Recruitment (Brazil – British Caribbean, 1830-1850)

Abstract

Shedding new light on British abolitionism after the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, this paper examines the Brazilian branch of African recruitment, a flow of approximately 2,550 people rescued from the slave trade and other recruits taken to British colonies in the Caribbean between the late 1830s and the 1850s. Drawing on British Foreign Office correspondence on the slave trade (FO 84 series), Brazilian ministerial reports, parliamentary debates and other sources, the paper shows that the recruitment scheme was the result of coordination between different sectors of the British government and served two main purposes: to provide indentured labourers for the British colonies in the Caribbean, where abolition took place in 1834, and to weaken Brazilian slavery. Cases of individual recruitment illustrate how over the years the British expanded the meaning of “free African” to extend their protection to all those brought to Brazil after 1830, that is, a good portion of those kept as slaves in the country.