The last transactions: The slave trade in the 1880s (Areias, Piracicaba and Casa Branca, province of São Paulo)

Abstract

We studied the internal slave trade in the period 1881-1887, based on register books of transactions involving slaves. Three paulista districts were selected for analysis: Areias, Piracicaba and Casa Branca. A coffee economy developed in those three places, but in the 1880s each had its unique experience related to the expansion of coffee through the province of São Paulo. We studied the slave trade in these different circumstances, considering the combined impact of the impending abolition of slavery, of the forbidding tax on slave imports to the province (since January 1881), and of the so-called Lei dos Sexagenários (1885). Surely all those elements had their influence on the trade of the human merchandise but were not enough to stop it, at least until the last months of 1887. Economic and demographic characteristics of the dealings, of the contracting parts and of the slaves traded are included in the themes studied.