O Brasil por Frederick Douglass: impressões sobre escravidão e relações raciais no Império¹

abstract

This article will discuss the impressions of the American abolitionist Frederick Douglass of race relations in Brazilian slave-ridden society. To do so, we will use his autobiography My bondage and my freedom, together with articles and speeches he wrote, in which his abolitionist eyes reveal a comparative approach between the lives of African-Americans and Afro-Brazilians. We will emphasize the subject of racial mixing, one of the aspects that most drew Douglass’s attention to Brazil, both because it was a personal dilemma for him, being himself was a man of biracial origin, and because the Empire seemed to him an example of a multiracial and egalitarian society that he very much dreamed for the United States.

keywords:
Frederick Douglass; Abolitionism; Brazil