May 13, 2010

Abolishment of Slavery in Brazil

Abolição da Escravatura em Brasil




This day in 1888, the formal abolition of Slavery was granted by the Republic of Brazil, a country largely founded on the lives of people forced into manual labour. While officially abolished, the practice was effectively continued in society well into the 20th century. When talking about the African slave trade, the amount of people which were actually forced into slavery is often not considered with enough solemnity. A sobering overview of statistics on the African Slave Trade, the regions people were taken from, the places that received them and the overall numbers is given in the following link;


These figures point to a body of research conducted and presented in the following publication;

'Transformations in Slavery - A History of Slavery in Africa' by Paul E. Lovejoy provides a fascinating read of the history of the greatest forces migration of a people, over a period of centuries, an event which shaped the world in which we find ourselves and and one in which we can trace the origins to our Beautiful Game

Contents, preface and a large preview of the book can be seen here