Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 2, 1872, Part I

No. 47.
Mr. Partridge to Mr. Fish.

United States Legation,
Rio de Janeiro, September 29, 1871. (Received November 3.)

No. 16.]

Sir: You will be gratified to learn that the emancipation bill, securing the freedom of all children hereafter born in Brazil of slave mothers, which had previously passed the chamber of deputies on the 28th August, was adopted” by the senate on the 27th September, received the imperial sanction from the princess regent next day, and is now a law of the empire.

The extinction of slavery in Brazil is therefore now assured. The act, as passed, differs but little from the bill presented by this ministry to the Chambers on the 12th May last, as set forth in Mr. Wright’s No. 171, dated 18th May. In fact, the only change that was not verbal, was the striking out, in the sixth article, of the provision that “the slaves now belonging to religious orders shall be free after seven years,” thus leaving those slaves still such, just as the slaves now belonging to private persons, and extending freedom only to the children of such hereafter born. The order of Benedictines, however, has since the act voluntarily freed all the slaves belonging to them, and given them lands to cultivate, and it ought not to be doubted that others of the religious orders, Franciscans, Carmelites, Capuchins, and Augustinians, &c, will follow this example.

By the provisions (article 6) of the act, (1) the slaves belonging to the nation, who were occupied in custom-houses, dock-yards, &c; (2) the slaves given in usufruct to the Crown, (at the well-known desire, and according to the example of the Emperor, who had already freed those belonging to him and the members of the imperial family;) (3) the slaves of masters dying without heirs; and (4) slaves not claimed by their masters, are declared now free at once.

Provision is also made for the maintenance by the masters or by the government for the children of slave mothers until twenty-one years of age, and for securing them occupation. The passage of this law was received with great enthusiasm, and, on the 27th, as soon as the vote was taken in the senate-chamber, roses and flowers were showered from the crowded galleries amid cheers and demonstrations of joy.

At night bands of music and processions with torches serenaded the ministers at their residences.

The minister of foreign affairs immediately sent to each of the foreign representatives here copies of the bill and documents relating to the project of emancipation, the receipt of which was acknowledged by notes generally in terms congratulating the government on the passage of this law.

Annexed (A) is the text of the law, with (B) a translation. Annex C contains printed copies of the notes sent by the foreign representatives, and manuscript copy of my own.

I am, &c,

JAMES R. PARTRIDGE.

[Annex B to No. 16.]

The law of freedom.

[Translation of the law of Brazil, freeing the children of slave mothers born after its passage.]

Law No. 2040 of September 28, 1871.

The Princess-Imperial Regent, in name of His Majesty D. Pedro II, makes known to all the subjects of the empire that the Assembly General has decreed and She has sanctioned the following law:

• Art. 1. All children born of slave women in the empire, after the date of this law, shall be free.

  § 1. The said minors shall remain in the power, and under the authority of the owners of their mothers, whose obligation it shall be to rear and take care of them until they complete the age of eight years.

  On the child arriving at this age, the owner of the mother shall have the option, either to receive from the State 600$000, as compensation, or to have the use of the minor’s services until he completes the age of twenty-one years.

  In the first case, the government shall receive the minor and dispose of him in con-orruity with the present law.

  The pecuniary compensation fixed above shall be paid in bonds drawing the annual interest of 6 per cent., and which shall be held extinct at the end of thirty years.

  The declaration of the master must be made within thirty days, counting from that on which the minor reaches eight years of age; and if he do not make it therein it shall remain understood that he chooses to retain the services of the said minor.

  § 2. Any of the minors may redeem himself from the onus of service by previously tendering, either by himself or by another person, pecuniary compensation to the owner of his mother, valuation of his services for the unexpired time being made, in case there be disagreement as to the amount of said compensation.

  § 3. The owners will have also to rear and care for whatever children the daughters of his slaves may bear while they are serving him.

  However, such obligation will cease so soon as the period of service to be given by the mothers is at an end. If these die within the term their children may be placed at the disposal of the government.

  § 4. If the slave woman obtains freedom, those of her children under eight years of age who are in the power of her owner, by virtue of § 1, shall be delivered up to her, unless she prefers to leave them, and the master agrees to keep them.

  § 5. In the case of alienation of the slave woman, her free children under twelve years shall go with her, and her new owner shall be subrogated in the rights and obligations of the former one.

  § 6. The apprenticeship of the children of the slave women shall cease before the time fixed in § 1, if it be recognized by a sentence of a criminal court that the owners of the mothers ill-treat them, by inflicting excessive punishment on them.

  § 7. The right conferred on Mie masters in§ 1 is transferred in cases of forced (i.e., by law) succession, and the child of the slave shall render service to the person to whom the said slave woman falls in the division of the succession.

• Art. 2. The government may deliver to associations authorized by it whatever children, born of slaves since the date of this law, are allowed to be at large or abandoned by the owners of the slaves, or are withdrawn from the owners’ power by virtue of art. 1, § 6.

  § 1. The said associations shall have right to the uncompensated services of the minors up to the complete age of twenty-one years, and may assign such services, but shall be bound:

  1. To rear and take care of said minors.

  2. To form for each of them a peculium, consisting of the quota reserved for this purpose by the statutes of the association.

  3. To obtain for them suitable employment at the end of their service.

  § 2. The associations treated of in the foregoing paragraph shall be subject to the inspection of the judges of orphans, as to the minors.

  This provision is applicable to foundling hospitals, and to persons whom the judges of orphans may intrust with the education of said minors, in default of associations or establishments created for such purpose.

  § 3. The right is reserved to the government of placing the said minors in public establishments; the State, in this case, assuming the obligations imposed by § 1 on authorized associations.

• Art. 3. In each province of the empire as many slaves shall be freed annually as will correspond to the quota annually disposable from the fund intended for emancipation.

  § 1. The emancipation fund is formed from—

  1. The tax on slaves.

  2. The imperial taxes on the transmission of property in slaves.

  3. The product of six lotteries annually, exempt from taxation, and the tenth part of all granted hereafter for drawing in the capital of the empire.

  4. The fines imposed by virtue of this law.

  5. Sums voted in the imperial, provincial, and municipal estimates.

  6. Subscriptions, donations, and legacies for the purpose.

  § 2. The sums voted in the provincial and municipal estimates, and all subscriptions, donations, and legacies, with local destination, shall be applied to emancipation in the provinces, comarcas, municipalities, and parishes indicated.

• Art. 4. To the slave is permitted the formation of a peculium, with what comes to him by donation, legacies, and inheritances, and with what, by consent of his owner, he obtains by his labor and savings. The government shall provide in the regulations for the placing and safety of said peculium.

  § 1. By death of the slave half the peculium shall belong to the surviving spouse, if there be one, and the other half shall be transmitted to the heirs, according to the civil law.

  In the failure of heirs the peculium shall be adjudicated to the emancipation fund treated of in art, 3.

  § 2. Every slave who, by means of his peculium, obtains the means of indemnifying his services, has right to liberation. If the compensation be not fixed by agreement it shall he so by arbitration. In judicial sales or inventories the price of liberation shal be that of valuation.

  § 3. It is, moreover, permitted, to slaves, in favor of their liberty, to contract with a third party the rendering of future services for a time not exceeding seven years, with the consent of the master and the approval of the orphan court.

  § 4. Any slave belonging to joint owners, if freed by one of them shall have right to his liberation on indemnifying his other owners for the shares belonging to them. This compensation may be paid with services rendered for a term of not over seven years, in conformity with the preceding paragraph.

  § 5. Liberation by contract with the stipulation of rendering service during a term of years shall not become annulled because of the non-performance of the stipulation, but the freed man may be forced to fulfill it by labor in public establishments, or by contracts of hire with private persons.

  § 6. All liberations, whether gratuitous or with onus, shall be exempt from every tax, fee, or expense.

  § 7. In cases of alienation or transmission of slaves it is forbidden, under penalty of nullity, to separate spouses, or children under 12 years of age, from their father or mother.

  § 8. If the division of chattels between heirs or partners does not comport with the union of a family, and no one of them proffers to keep it under his dominion, replacing the shares of the others interested, the family shall, be sold together and its product divided.

  § 9. Ord. Book IV, Tit. 63, is hereby derogated in that part which revokes liberations because of ingratitude.

• Art. 5. The emancipation societies already organized, and those hereafter formed, shall be subject to the inspection of the orphan-judges.
• Only §. Said societies shall have a lien on the services of slaves liberated by them, in compensation of the price of purchase.
• Art. 6. The following slaves are now declared free:

  § 1. The slaves belonging to the nation; to whom the government may give whatever employment it thinks proper.

  § 2. The slaves given in usufruct to the Crown.

  § 3. Slaves of unclaimed estates.

  § 4. Slaves abandoned by their owners:

  If these abandon them as invalids, they shall-be obliged to maintain them except in ease of poverty, and the aliments shall be fixed by the orphan-judge.

  § 5. In general, the slaves liberated by virtue of this law remain for five years under the inspection of the government. They are bound to hire themselves out, under penalty of being compelled, if living in vagrancy, to labor in the public establishments.

  However, the compulsion to work shall cease whenever the freed man exhibits a contract of hire.

• Art. 7. In suits in favor of freedom:

  § 1. The process shall be summary.

  § 2. There shall be ex-officio appeals where in all cases the decisions are against freedom.

• Art. 8. The government shall order a special registration to be made of all the slaves existing in the empire, with declaration of the name, sex, condition, fitness for labor, and the parentage of each, if it be known.

  § 1. The time for the opening and closing of the registration shall be announced with all possible antecedence, by means of repeated notices, in which the provisions of the following paragraph shall be inserted:

  § 2. All slaves who, through the fault or omission of the interested parties, are not given for registration within a year after its close, shall be ipso facto held free.

  § 3. For the registration of each slave the owner shall pay, once only, the fee of 500 reis, if within the time fixed; or of l$000, if it be exceeded. The product of this fee shall be applied to the costs of the registration, and the excess to the emancipation fund.

  § 4. Slave women’s children free by this law shall also be registered, in a separate book.

  Masters omitting to do so, through negligence, shall incur a fine of 100$ to 200$, repeated for every individual omitted; and if through fraud, the penalties of art. 179 of the criminal code.

  § 5. The parish priests shall be obliged to have special books for the registration of the births and deaths of slaves’ children born since the date of this law. Each omission shall subject the priest to a fine of 100$.

• Art. 9. The government may in its regulations impose fines up to 100$, and penalties of simple imprisonment up to a year.
• Art. 10. All contrary provisions are revoked.

She therefore commands all the authorities to whom the knowledge and execution of the foregoing law pertain, to fulfill it and cause it to be fulfilled and kept entirely as therein contained-The secretary of state for affairs of agriculture, commerce, and public works shall cause it to be printed, published, and spread. Given in the Palace of Rio de Janeiro, on the 28th of September, 1871; 50th of Independence and the Empire.

[Signed]

PRINCESS-IMPERIAL REGENT.

Theodoro Maciiado Preire Pereira da Silva.

Introduced, May 12, 1871, into the Chamber of Deputies, by the Minister of Agriculture.

Passed, August 28 by the Chamber of Deputies, by 61 votes to 35. Passed, September 27, by the Senate, by 32 votes to 4.

Sanctioned, September 28, by the Regent, the Princess-Imperial D. Isabel Countess d’Eu.

Cabinet of March 7, 1871.

Conselheiro the Visconde do Rio Branco, President of the Council of Ministers, and Minister of Finance.

Conselheiro Joāo Alfredo Correa d’Oliveira, Minister of the Empire,

Conselheiro Francisco de Paulo Negreiros Sayāo Lobato, Minister of Justice.

Conselheiro Manoel Francisco Corrêa, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Conselheiro Domingos Nogueira Jaguaribe, Minister of War.

Conselheiro Manoel Antonio Duarte de Azevedo, Minister of Marine.

Conselheiro Theodore Machado Freire Pereira da Silva, Minister of Agriculture, Commerce and Public Works.

Copy of Mr. Partridge’s note to the minister of foreign affairs, in answer to his note of September 28, 1871, inclosing certain printed documents, in relation to the emancipation bill.

United States Legation,
Rio de Janeiro, September 28, 1871.

I have had the pleasure of receiving the printed documents which his excellency the Councilor Senor Manoel Francisco Correia, minister and secretary of state, had the goodness to send me, consisting of the opinion of the council of state in 1868, the report and bill of the deputies in 1870, and the report of the special committee of this year upon the project offered by the government, in relation to the servile population, which bill, having passed the senate also, and received the imperial sanction, is now a law of the empire.

In returning my thanks to his excellency the Councilor Correia, &c., desire to add, also, my sincere congratulations on the passage of this beneficent law, which secures freedom to every human being hereafter born in Brazil.

The enactment of this law will be received with satisfaction by all nations, and no one of them will rejoice more than the people of the United States. They have already given proof of their support by their adoption of these same principles, which, through the patriotism and firmness of the Brazilian Chambers, and the enlightened wisdom of His Majesty the Emperor, have now passed into a law, as indispensable to the material progress of any nation as it is demanded by considerations of humanity and Christian charity.

And I take occasion to repeat to his excellency, the Councilor Senor Manoel Francisco Correia, the assurances of my complete consideration.

JAMES R. PARTRIDGE.