Slavery in Brazil

Edmund Burke, the acclaimed author and philosopher once said, “Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.” Between the 16th and 19th century in the Americas, millions on millions of slaves were brought to the New World. There purpose was to work. The economy of most European colonies in America was dependent on slaves. The land that was discovered in Americas was useless with out sufficient slave labor to exploit it. In this essay, I will focus on two nations where slavery played an enormous role in the development of that country. First, The United States, where in 1860 in South Carolina over 50 percent of the population were slaves. Next, Brazil, the nation where about one third of all salves from Africa were brought. In this essay I will compare slavery in The United States to slavery in Brazil, I will dissect the similarities and differences while focusing on why and how the slaves came, the demographic and religious aspects, the treatment of the slaves, and the aftermath on both countries due to slavery.
Around the year 1530 the Portuguese came to Brazil in search of land and natural resources, specifically sugar. As the Portuguese and the indigenous people of Brazil battled for land, the Brazilians resisted against being enslaved. As the Portuguese presence grew in Brazil so did disease, causing the death of most of the working indigenous people. As the number of sugar plantations grew, the demand for workers did as well. This is the main reason why Brazil began to import slaves from Africa. Although the origin of slaves in The United States was similar to Brazil, there were some differences. In the year 1619, only around 10 years after the British began to colonize US, a Dutch slave trader exchanged about 20 Africans for food in Jamestown, Virginia. Like Brazil, the U.S needed workers for plantations, but while Brazil focused on the sugar plantations, the U.S was focused on the tobacco plantations. In general, both Brazil and the U.S lacked a major

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