What was the Lei Áurea, Brazil’s Golden Law?

The whole law

Most laws run to pages. The one that ended more than three centuries of slavery in Brazil fits on a postcard. Here it is, complete:

Slavery in Brazil is declared extinct from the date of this law. All provisions to the contrary are revoked.

The first article does the work. The second is the standard clause that cancels any earlier rule saying otherwise. Áurea simply means “golden.”

What makes the text remarkable is what it leaves out. Brazil’s earlier steps had all come with strings attached. The Free Womb Law of 1871 declared newborns free but let their mothers’ masters use their labor until age 21. The Sexagenarian Law of 1885 freed people at 60, then made them serve three more years as compensation. The 1888 law set no waiting period and paid no one. Freedom began the day it was signed.

Five days in May

By early 1888 the system was already coming apart. Enslaved people were fleeing the coffee farms of São Paulo by the thousands, and in March, with the plantations emptying, the cabinet of the Baron of Cotegipe fell. Emperor Pedro II was in Europe for his health, so his daughter, Princess Isabel, governed as regent. She called on João Alfredo to form a new government. Then things moved fast:

• May 8: the minister Rodrigo Silva brings the Chamber of Deputies a very short bill.
• May 10: the Chamber passes it, 83 votes to 9.
• May 13, a Sunday: the Senate votes, with the public watching from the galleries. That afternoon, at the city palace in Rio, Isabel signs it with a pen of gold and precious stones.

Outside, a crowd waited for the news, and the photographer Antônio Luiz Ferreira recorded the scene. From bill to signature took five days.

Who went free, and with what

About 700,000 people who were still enslaved became free that Sunday. The law gave them nothing beyond that. It said nothing about land, schooling, wages or any kind of reparation. It was the former masters who went to the government asking for compensation, and the freed people who received nothing. Many stayed on the same farms for very low pay; others left for the cities. The story of those first years is in What happened after abolition in Brazil?.

The planters’ anger had consequences of its own. Denied compensation, many turned against the monarchy, earning the nickname republicanos de 14 de maio, the “May 14 republicans.” Eighteen months later, on November 15, 1889, the Empire fell, as Why did the monarchy fall in Brazil? explains.

Celebration, and a question

Rio celebrated for days. On May 17 an open-air Mass in the district of São Cristóvão drew thousands, with the princess on the platform. In Ferreira’s photograph of it, researchers believe they have spotted the novelist Machado de Assis standing near her.

Who deserves the credit for that day is still argued over in Brazil, and the evidence gives each side a real point. Both readings are laid out in Did Princess Isabel end slavery in Brazil?.