Freedom, Humanity and Property: The Slaves and the Assembléia Constituinte, 1823

Abstract

This paper analyzes the questions about slaves freedom through the discussion of a particular case, in 1823´s Brazilian Constituent Assembly. Through the solicitation from a group of slaves, we can evaluate their strategies in parliamentary debate, as well as the role of slavemasters and parliamentaries, in early nineteenth-century. We have here some evidences that, beyond the quotidian confrontation between slavemasters and slaves, and the confrontation in judicial ring, the parliament also was perceveid by the slaves as a field of struggle inside brazilian slavery in the nineteenth-century.