The Rio Branco law (), also known as the Law of Free Birth (), named after its champion, prime minister

José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco José Maria da Silva Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco (16 March 1819 – 1 November 1880), was a Brazilian politician, monarchist, diplomat, teacher and journalist. Rio Branco was born in Salvador, in what was then the Captaincy of Bah ...

, was passed by the

General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presby ...

of the

Empire of Brazil The Empire of Brazil was a 19th-century state that broadly comprised the territories which form modern Brazil and Uruguay until the latter achieved independence in 1828. The empire's government was a Representative democracy, representative Par ...

on 28 September 1871. It was intended to grant freedom to all newborn children of slaves, and slaves of the state or crown. However, children of enslaved women in Brazil were obligated to serve their mother's owners until the age of 21, a condition that was often more or less that of slavery. The law did not define the exact legal status of enslaved women's wombs; this was negotiated by enslaved people afterwards, with women at the forefront. The law was the beginning of an abolition movement in Brazil, but it turned out to be more of a legal

loophole A loophole is an ambiguity or inadequacy in a system, such as a law or security, which can be used to circumvent or otherwise avoid the purpose, implied or explicitly stated, of the system. Originally, the word meant an arrowslit, a narrow vertic ...

than a radical measure that led to viable progress. Only a few people were freed under the law, while more than one million people continued to be held as slaves throughout Brazil. This law had more of an influence in the northern part of the country, which was leaning further toward

wage A wage is payment made by an employer to an employee for work (human activity), work done in a specific period of time. Some examples of wage payments include wiktionary:compensatory, compensatory payments such as ''minimum wage'', ''prevailin ...

rather than slave labor. Many of those freed under the Rio Branco law migrated to the north to work for wages on the

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

s. The Rio Branco law was the first step toward abolition of

slavery in Brazil Slavery in Brazil began long before the Colonial Brazil, first Portuguese settlement. Later, colonists were heavily dependent on indigenous labor during the initial phases of settlement to maintain the subsistence economy, and natives were of ...

. It was ultimately abolished on 13 May 1888 with the adoption of the .

References

1871 in law Legal history of Brazil 1871 in Brazil Slavery in Brazil Abolitionism in Brazil Slavery legislation 19th century in slavery {{Brazil-hist-stub pt:Abolicionismo no Brasil#Lei do Ventre Livre

See also

References