Designs on Empire: America’s Rise to Power in the Age of European Imperialism

Abstract

This evidence helps to explain why Brazilians so willingly transitioned to free labor and embraced the view that it was the most economical form of labor. Economic historians have debated whether free labor actually was the most efficient, but Saba’s approach helps to explain why Brazilians embraced the ideology of free labor all the same because their interactions with the American North had convinced them of the system’s value. Saba also illustrates that, while these Brazilian intellectuals lauded American abolitionists and the free labor system they created, they for the most part rejected widespread political participation and the broader social justice agendas that Reconstruction in the United States addressed. In this sense, Brazilian modernizers considered the transition to free labor almost exclusively as a method to secure a low-cost working class rather than as a way to create a just society. That U.S.-based abolitionists shared this vision once again highlights the transnational nature of Brazil’s transition away from a slave labor force. While Saba’s book reveals the role played by elites and members of the intelligentsia in guiding Brazil’s transition to a free labor society, questions pertaining to the role played by the enslaved themselves or the poorer elements of Brazilian society in this transition still need to be explained. In the United States, large numbers of free African Americans, as well as religiously motivated reformers, pushed emancipation along and, in the process, pressured political leaders to do the same. Furthermore, the white working class periodically attacked slavery, believing that it threatened the status of their labor and trades. For these groups, the issue was not about becoming part of a wage labor proletariat but of becoming citizens with access to both prosperity and political power. The role of similar groups in Brazilian society remains yet to be addressed. In addition, more could have been said about the imperative of maintaining an elite-dominated society during a time of global emancipation. Brazil’s monarchy, along with its formal aristocracy, indicates that it was, overall, less democratic than the U.S. during the nineteenth century, making the end of slavery less politically consequential. Grappling with this difference would have added another important dimension to Saba’s otherwise very interesting and informative story of how Brazilian slave emancipation occurred more smoothly and less violently than the war induced demise of slavery in the United States.