Latest / The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History / The Slave Trade's Last Stand: Brazil's Illegal Slave Smuggling
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the slave trade in its heyday, the Middle Passage, the sheer scale of it. But today I want to get into what happens when it's officially over but actually isn't. I'm talking about the illegal slave trade, the smuggling that kept the Atlantic trade going long after the laws said it had to stop. Luna: Oh, like the ban didn't just magically work, right? Lucas: Exactly. You know, Britain abolished its slave trade in 1807, and the United States did the same that year. But Brazil, which was importing more enslaved people than anyone else by the early nineteenth century, only passed its own abolition in 1831. And that law was, to put it mildly, a farce. Luna: A farce? How so? Lucas: Well, the Brazilian government passed the 1831 law under British pressure, but it was never enforced. Basically everyone knew it was a dead letter. Slavers just had to bribe port officials, land their captives at night or on remote beaches, and the trade continued almost as if nothing had changed. In fact, some historians estimate that more Africans were trafficked to Brazil in the 1830s and 1840s than in any previous decade. Luna: Wait, really? So the law actually made it worse in a way? Lucas: In some respects, yeah. The trade went underground, and that made it even more dangerous for the captives. Ships were faster, smaller, packed even tighter to avoid capture. They were called 'tumble ships' because they were so overloaded they might just roll over in a storm. One smuggler bragged that his vessel could do the crossing in about thirty days, a whole week faster than the old slavers, but that meant even less food and water and more suffering. Luna: That's horrifying. Who were the people running this? Just Brazilian slave traders? Lucas: It was a multinational business. American shipbuilders in Baltimore built sleek Baltimore clippers that were perfect for smuggling. Portuguese and Brazilian merchants financed the voyages, and Cuban and Brazilian ports provided cover. You had British, French, and even American captains skippering these ships, thinking they could outrun any patrol. Luna: And the British were the ones patrolling, right? The West Africa Squadron we talked about before. Lucas: Right. The West Africa Squadron was Britain's attempt to enforce its own abolition, and they did capture maybe ten percent of the ships. But that wasn't nearly enough. The profits were so huge that losing one ship in ten didn't matter. Each voyage could bring in tens of thousands of dollars in profit, so even with losses, the trade was wildly lucrative. Lucas: And here's a name that illustrates the impunity of the trade. Thomas Harrison was a Scottish-born smuggler who operated out of Rio de Janeiro in the 1830s. He wasn't a shadowy figure — he was actually a prominent businessman, a member of the British community in Brazil. He'd fit out slavers under the Brazilian flag, and when British cruisers came too close, he'd just transfer the cargo to another ship. He was never convicted. Luna: So he was like a respectable criminal? How did he get away with it? Lucas: Because the Brazilian authorities didn't want to stop him, and the British government had limited power to do anything about it. They could pressure Brazil diplomatically, but Brazil was a sovereign nation, and its elites were deeply invested in slavery. Coffee was booming, and they needed labor. Luna: So what changed? How did the illegal trade finally end? Lucas: It took a combination of pressure and a change in Brazilian policy. The British passed the Aberdeen Act in 1845, which actually allowed British warships to seize Brazilian-flagged slave ships even in Brazilian waters. That was a blatant violation of sovereignty, but it put immense pressure on Brazil. And then in 1850, the Brazilian government finally got serious. The minister of justice, Eusébio de Queirós, pushed through a new law that actually carried real enforcement. Luna: So the Eusébio de Queirós law actually worked? Lucas: It did, and that's interesting. Within a few years, the trade just collapsed. The Brazilian government started prosecuting offenders, port officials were held accountable, and British ships could legally stop and search vessels suspected of slaving. Between 1850 and 1852, the number of Africans arriving in Brazil plummeted to near zero. The last known landing was around 1852. Luna: Wow, so it really ended. But why did they suddenly enforce it after all those years? Lucas: Part of it was that the threat of British intervention was becoming real — there were even rumors that British ships might blockade Rio de Janeiro. And some Brazilian elites realized that the illegal trade was undermining the legitimacy of their empire. Plus, they had a growing internal slave population, so they thought they could get by without new Africans. Lucas: It's also worth remembering that the illegal trade didn't just harm Africans; it also distorted Brazil's economy. Huge amounts of capital were tied up in smuggled human cargo instead of being invested in infrastructure or industry. But even so, the legacy of that trade is written in Brazil's demographics — millions of people of African descent, and a deep-seated inequality that persists to this day. Luna: It's incredible how long the trade continued despite being illegal. It's like the law meant nothing to them. Lucas: It's a sobering reminder that laws only work when people are willing to enforce them. And that's part of why we dig into these stories — to understand how power and money have often trumped human decency. If today's episode gave you some new way to think about this history, that's exactly what we're trying to do. And the way we keep doing this, ad-free and independent, is through listener support. If you found this useful, you can help us keep going by heading to buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, and it's thanks to listeners like you that we can keep shining a light on these darker chapters. Lucas: Anyway, back to the story. The end of the illegal trade didn't mean the end of slavery in Brazil, of course. That lasted until 1888 — the last country in the Americas to abolish it. But the closing of the Atlantic slave trade had enormous consequences. It forced Brazil to rely on the natural growth of its enslaved population, which changed the social and economic dynamics of slavery itself. Luna: Interesting. So it was like the beginning of the end, even though it wasn't the end. Lucas: Exactly. And it also pushed freed and enslaved Africans in Brazil to create their own communities and resist in different ways, from quilombos to urban revolts. The history doesn't stop at the coast.