Abstract
This study will study how the illegal African slave trade built the Brazilian aristocracy in the beginning of Pedro II’s government. For this, we use “O Philantropo” and “O Grito Nacional” as sources, both belonged to the Brazilian liberal press associated with the emerging abolitionism in the late 1840s. We will analyse how this press highlighted the constitution of a slave trade aristocracy formed by slave dealers in the mid-19th century. Thus, our text is divided into four section. The first two will analyse the political affiliation of these newspapers and its denunciations of the formation of a slave dealer aristocracy in the Empire, whereas the last two will study this abolitionism, showing how anti-”Portugueseness” and the commitment to slave ownership exempted Brazilian society from responsibility for clandestinely sustaining the slave trade while exclusively blaming the Portuguese for the illegal African slave trade.
Keywords:
African slave trade; Slavery; Slavery society; Brazilian nobility; Brazil Empire