This paper aims at investigating the newspaper O Philantropo (1849-1852) and the Society against the Slave Trade and for the Colonization and Civilization of the Indians which supported it. It focuses on the specific roles of the Society's members in the movement for ending the slave trade, when the discussion for its suppression was taking place in Parliament. In the newspaper, ranged under the banner of the defense against the slave trade, could also be found the support for a free labor force and a nationalism which frequently made use of racialist arguments. It attempts to detach some aspects of the debate of the Society by examining the profile of its members as well as by articulating the problem of colonization with the formation of the nation through the issues of race, diseases and slavery.
slave trade; race; nation
