In the early 1700s, the gold rush in Minas Gerais drew large numbers of enslaved Africans into inland mining zones, shifting Brazilian slavery beyond coastal sugar regions and expanding the scale of coerced labor in the interior.
Coffee cultivation in Brazil is conventionally dated to 1727, when seedlings were introduced in Pará—an origin point for a crop that later expanded with plantation slavery, especially in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo provinces.
By 1735, the Mariana region in Minas Gerais had an enslaved population exceeding 26,000 during the gold-mining boom, illustrating the heavy reliance on slave labor in Brazilian extractive economies.
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo (the Marquis of Pombal) became the dominant statesman of Portugal (1750–1777). His reforms reshaped imperial administration and commerce, affecting Brazilian plantation and slaveholding structures under Portuguese mercantilism.
In 1759, the Portuguese crown expelled the Jesuits from its domains. The policy was part of wider Pombaline reforms that reallocated authority and resources in the empire, including in Brazil’s labor and land regimes.
Portugal established the Companhia Geral de Pernambuco e Paraíba (13 August 1759) to control and stimulate transatlantic commerce tied to the sugar-producing northeast, reinforcing export-oriented plantation economies that depended on enslaved labor.
Brazil’s independence (1822) did not dismantle plantation slavery; instead, enslaved labor continued to underpin sugar production and the rapidly expanding coffee economy in the southeast.
By 1825, coffee cultivation expanded on a larger scale in the Paraíba Valley (between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo), with plantation growth powered largely by enslaved labor and rising Atlantic demand.
In late January 1835, a major urban uprising led largely by enslaved and freed African Muslims (Malês) took place in Salvador. The revolt highlighted the instability of slave society and intensified elite fears, surveillance, and repression.
The UK’s Slave Trade (Brazil) Act 1845 (Aberdeen Act), passed on 9 August 1845, empowered the Royal Navy to stop and search Brazilian vessels suspected of slave trading, escalating pressure on Brazil’s transatlantic trafficking networks.
Law No. 581 of 4 September 1850 (Eusébio de Queirós Law) strengthened enforcement against the importation of enslaved Africans, effectively ending Brazil’s legal transatlantic slave trade while leaving domestic slavery intact.
The Land Law (Law No. 601), promulgated on 18 September 1850, restricted access to public lands primarily to purchase. It shaped plantation expansion and labor transitions by limiting land access for freed and poor populations and encouraging colonization schemes.
The Rio Branco Law (Law of Free Birth / Lei do Ventre Livre), enacted on 28 September 1871, declared children born to enslaved women free (while typically binding them to service until adulthood), marking a pivotal step toward gradual abolition.
The Saraiva-Cotegipe Law (Lei dos Sexagenários), enacted on 28 September 1885, granted freedom to enslaved people aged 60 or older under restrictive conditions. Though limited in immediate effect, it intensified the political crisis of slavery.
On 13 May 1888, Princess Isabel signed Law No. 3,353 (Lei Áurea), formally ending slavery in Brazil—bringing to a close the plantation system’s legal reliance on enslaved labor in sugar and coffee economies.
Brazilian Slavery, Sugar and Coffee Plantations (1700–1888)
