Aberdeen Act

United Kingdom legislation
Slave Trade (Brazil) Act 1845
Act of Parliament
Long titleAn Act to amend an Act, intituled "An Act to carry into execution a Convention between His Majesty and the Emperor of Brazil, for the Regulation and final Abolition of the African Slave Trade."
Citation8 & 9 Vict. c. 122
Other legislation
AmendsSlave Trade, Convention with Brazil Act 1827
Part of a series on
Slavery
Shackles
Antiquity
Medieval Europe
Muslim world
Atlantic slave trade
Topics and practice
Naval
By country or region
Sub-Saharan Africa
North and South America
East, Southeast, and South Asia
Australia and Oceania
Europe and North Asia
North Africa and West Asia
  • v
  • t
  • e

The Aberdeen Act of 1845 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (8 & 9 Vict. c. 122) passed during the reign of Queen Victoria on 9 August. The long title of the Act is "An Act to amend an Act, intituled An Act to carry into execution a Convention between His Majesty and the Emperor of Brazil, for the Regulation and final Abolition of the African Slave Trade".

This law is seen in Brazilian historiography as a British retaliation against the Alves Branco Tariff, a tariff reform established in 1844 by Finance Minister Manuel Alves Branco that raised import duties[1][2] followed by the ending of the British-Brazilian Convention of 1826 on the Atlantic slave trade to Brazil.[1]

History

The Act was proposed by British Foreign Secretary Lord Aberdeen. It gave the Royal Navy authority to stop and search any Brazilian ship suspected of being a slave ship on the high seas, and to arrest slave traders caught on these ships.

The Act stipulated that arrested slave traders could be tried in British courts. The law was designed to suppress the Brazilian slave trade, to make effective Brazilian laws and the British-Brazilian Treaty of 1826 to end the Atlantic slave trade, that Brazil had signed and ratified but failed to enforce.

It provoked outrage in Brazil, where it was seen as a violation of free market, freedom of navigation, as an affront to Brazilian sovereignty and territorial integrity, and as an attempt to check Brazil's rise as a world power.

Controversies

As a result, the Royal Navy began intercepting Brazilian slavers on the high seas, and Brazilian slave traders caught on these ships were prosecuted in British admiralty courts. Over the following years, the number of cases in British admiralty courts increased dramatically due to the large number of Brazilians arrested for slave-trading - in the first six months of 1848, 19 out of 33 cases heard by the vice admiralty court in St. Helena were Brazilian.[3]

Despite the aggressive application of this law, the volume of the Brazilian slave trade increased in the late 1840s; the demand for slaves had increased due to British free-trade legislation that lifted tariffs on Brazilian sugar. However, Anglo-Brazilian tensions continued to increase. In 1850-51, a handful of British ships began entering Brazilian territorial waters and even its harbors to attack slave ships. In one instance, a British ship exchanged fire with a Brazilian fort.[3]

In the face of these tensions, Brazil knew that it could not afford to go to war with Britain. In addition, popular sentiment against the slave trade in Brazil was growing. The Brazilian government decided to put an end to the slave trade. In September 1850, new legislation outlawing the slave trade was enacted, and the Brazilian government began to enforce it.

As a result, the Brazilian slave trade declined, and despite some illegal slavers that continued to operate, the trade came to an end in the mid-1850s, although slavery itself was not abolished in Brazil until 1888.[3] On 27 April 1852, the British government notified its counterpart in Brazil of its permanent withdrawal of warships from Brazilian waters, on condition that there be no resumption of the slave trade; the reports of the British minister to Brazil in 1860 and the following year, showed no indication of breach. Finally satisfied there would be no resumption of the African slave trade, the British parliament repealed the Aberdeen Act on 19 April 1869.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Francisco Doratioto (2016). José Vicente de Sá Pimentel (ed.). Brazilian Diplomatic Thought: Policymakers and Agents of Foreign Policy (1750-1964) (PDF). Translated by Rodrigo Sardenberg, Paul Sekscenski. p. 282. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  2. ^ "Alves Branco Tariff". encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 25 January 2021.
  3. ^ a b c Martinez, Jenny S. The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (2012), Oxford University Press.
  4. ^ Adams, Jane Elizabeth (1925). "The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade". The Journal of Negro History. 10 (4): 607–637. doi:10.2307/2714142. ISSN 0022-2992. JSTOR 2714142. S2CID 149914765.

Further reading

External links

  • Text of Act
  • v
  • t
  • e
Pre-parliamentary legislation
Acts of parliaments of states preceding
the Kingdom of Great Britain
Parliament of England
Parliament of Scotland
Acts of Parliament of the
Kingdom of Great Britain
Acts of the Parliament of Ireland
Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland and the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland


relating to the European Union (formerly European Communities)
Church of England measures
  • List
  • Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act 1919
Legislation of devolved institutions
Orders in Council
for Northern Ireland
Secondary legislation
Authority control databases: People Edit this at Wikidata
  • UK Parliament