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Slavery In Brazil Book Review

Decent Essays

The Abolition of Slavery in Brazil describes the gradual change of Brazilian society from pro-slavery to the rising of the abolitionist movement. Author Robert Brent Toplin does a very good job of describing the various aspect that led to the abolitionism in Brazil. This book gradually expresses the development of abolitionism. Toplin describes slaves and slave-holders, the various issues and solution people had with slavery, and then goes into describing gradual development of abolitionism. The book flow and gives you all aspects of social, political, and economic elements that lead to and create the abolitionist movement. Beginning with the first chapter, Toplin sets the tone of his book by explaining the relationship of slave and slave-holders. Hard- core Slaveholders were pushing to keep slavery, while Northern slaveholders were more than willing it get ride of their slaves.1 Therefore, slaves’ life experience was effected by more than just their general relationship and roles of their master. …show more content…

These types of sources include: abolitionist propaganda literature, newspaper articles, scholarly journals, autobiography, broad range of primary sources, and statistical graphs and charts regarding the slave population. Most Toplin’s general information about abolitionism in Brazil comes from secondary sources. However, Toplin’s direct accounts of this time period come from abolitionist books, government records, and other first-hand accounts. Toplin makes good use of his sources. His secondary sources give a summary of the overall narrative of the development of abolitionism. When he begins to give direct examples of people, statistics, and major event, Toplin is able to back up his findings with very detailed primary sources. For example, when Toplin describes northern planters shift to abolitionism, he is able to back up is argument with a quote from a Rio News article at that time describing the political equilibrium being

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