Abstract
For more than forty years, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) has fought against the use of slave labor by the British mining companies operating in Minas Gerais and has endeavored to create legal mechanisms in Britain to punish offenders. The results were not always promising and these companies only effectively stopped using slave labor when Brazilian law prevented them from doing so. However, following the episodes shows that the British state was the main responsible for the failure of the abolitionists and that, despite the failures of the British abolitionists, their efforts helped spread the anti-slavery sentiment in Brazilian society.
Keywords:
Slavery; mining; antislavery