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Jan 1, 1500
Slave arrived!!
Portuguese arrived in Brazil. -
Jan 1, 1530
More slaves!
African slaves were brought into Brazil. -
Jan 1, 1549
Bureaucracy
The crown established a strict bureaucracy to fight off French and British incursions into Brazil. -
Jan 1, 1550
Look at all this sugar!!
By the mid- 1500s sugar plantations began to spring up in the Northeast. -
GOLD!!
In the 1690s, gold was found in Minas Gerais, tripling the demand for slaves; of the estimated 1.7 million slaves brought into Brazil, about 1 million went to the gold mines and diamond fields. -
Free the Slaves!!
In the 1830s, Britain's Royal Navy began to intercept slave ships headed for Brazil, in order to free the enslaved Africans. -
Slavery outlawed in Britain
Britain had outlawed slavery in the British colonies, making it difficult to compete with the slave economies of Brazil and Cuba. -
"Law of the Free Womb"
In 1871, Brazil passed the "Law of the Free Womb," freeing from that time forward the children born of slaves. -
Sexagenarian Law
In 1885, Brazil passed the Sexagenarian Law, freeing slaves over sixty-five years of age, though few slaves reached that age. -
End of Slave trade
Abolitionment of slavery in 1888