Page 17 - Swann Galleries - Printed & Manuscript African Americana- Sale 2308 - March 21, 2013

9 ● (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION—
BRAZIL.) “Ley em que se accrescentao
as penas impostas con-tra os mulatos, e
pretos escravos do Brasil, que usarem
de armas prohibidas. (Law, prohibiting
the possession of knives and other arms
by mulato and black slaves.) Single small
folio leaf, printed on both sides, signed in
type REY. (King); small ink number at the
top of the page; later plain paper covers.A
VIRTUALLY PRISTINE COPY.
Lisbon, January 24, 1756 [500/750]
A law prohibiting the possession of any sort of
weapon by a mulatto or black slave. The
Portuguese began to colonize Brazil as early as the
16th century. The enslavement of indigenous peo-
ple, as in other places in the New World was not
successful and resulted in the large-scale importa-
tion of Africans. This helped shape the country’s
social structure and later ethnic landscape. During
the colonial epoch and for over six decades after the
1822 independence, slavery was a mainstay of the
Brazilian economy, especially in mining, cotton,
and sugar cane production. Of the enormous num-
ber of people taken from the African continent during the period of the Atlantic slave Trade, it is
estimated that Brazil received 35% of them, or some 3 million people. Brazil was the last country to
abolish slavery in 1888.
10 ● (SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) Pair of wrought-iron “Middle Passage”
slave shackles. Overall length 111⁄
2 inches, with the apertures for the wrists approximately
31⁄
4 inches each; heavy, but smooth oxidation to the surface from having been in sea water
for a considerable time. Africa, circa late 18th to mid-nineteenth century [2,000/3,000]
A pair of shackles of the sort used during the cruel “Middle Passage from Africa to the
Americas. These, like the majority of “Middle Passage” shackles that one sees today have been
recovered from the many wrecks of slave ships found off the coast of Africa. The British, who
placed a ban on the slave trade in 1807, sank many slavers that were seized along the coast
and in up the rivers where slavers usually picked up their cargo. Images of such shackles may be
seen in early anti-slavery tracts. See Lydia Maria Child’s “Appeal in Behalf of that Class of
Americans called Africans (Boston, 1833), or William Wilberforce’s “Abstract of the Evidence,
(London, 1791) where they are pictured together with the famous diagram of the hold of the
slave ship “Brookes.” Shackles like these are virtually the only type that can be verifiably said
to have been used in the African slave trade. Other types of shackles could also have been used
in law enforcement etc.
10