Caroline Kohorst
Pollard
IB History- D
10 September 2007
The contrasts between both the Brazil and United States slave institutions during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries illustrate the concept of Brazil maintaining a more benevolent slave system than the United States. Brazil’s economics were preserved and somewhat dependent upon the slavery, while the United States’s economics were just enhanced through the slavery system. Thus explaining that the Brazilians could not maintain any type of economy without slavery. A large aspect of Brazilian slavery that differentiated itself from that of the United States was the slave’s ability to attain freedom more easily, a system that was traitorous in the southern United States. Included with the slaves right to be released from the owner, there was not the outright racism in Brazil that was present in the United States. Another main difference is Brazil’s ownership by Great Britain, and therefore Brazil was forced to abide by Great Britain’s laws against slavery. The United States, in comparison, a sovereign nation, could only force itself out of slavery, and therefore had no economic incentive to ban slavery. Therefore, with the comparison between Brazil and the United States, one may see that the slavery system implemented in Brazil during the 18th and 19th centuries were somewhat tranquil when compared to that of the United States.
As soon as Brazil became a settled nation, slave trade became a massive player in not wholly South American economy, but specifically Brazilian economy. The majority of labor was performed by the slaves, and due to the slaves’ inability to climb in social stratus if freed, there resulted in a large freed peasant population (Arciniegas). This small population of multiracial people became small landowners, who oftentimes owned slaves themselves (Arciniegas). Due to their “economic inferiority,” the quest for independence was futile, and most often joined with a large landowner in order to support the small farm (Arciniegas). This supports the concept of Brazil’s slave economy, even if the person was a slave or a freed slave, they were contributing to the agricultural economy. This differs from the United States in the sense that within Brazil, the slaves were treated with a mentality of necessity. The United States had a somewhat stabile economy, due to the north part of the United States, a mostly slavery free part of the country. Therefore, with Brazil’s necessity for the slaves, their treatment was henceforth more humane than in the United States, where the slaves contributed to the overall wealth of each individual landowner.