Mostly you're right about Brazil, I didn't indicate otherwise in the post. One could argue, though, that with the Fugitive Slave Act and especially after Dred Scott that slavery was a national institution in the US, albeit one not recognized by over half the states. Brazil had relied on the slave trade, rather than natural increase, to replenish its slave population. Once that was effectively curtailed in the 1850s by the British and American fleets, slavery went into a slow decline. True, the fact that it stood alone had an impact, but the relative economic cost of cheap non-slave labor undercut the institution also. As Carl Degler proved years ago, Brazil was certainly no racial paradise. Because of the cultural difference, I think slavery would have played out differently here, probably morphing into something like South African apartheid control of labor in the 1960s.

Jim Hershman

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