Guarantors of the Empire: illegal slave trade and the financing of the Brazilian Imperial State (1837-1850)

• Grant number: 24/08262-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2024
• End date: July 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - History of Brazil
• Principal Investigator: Rodrigo Goyena da Silveira Soares
• Grantee: Arthur Whyte Ferreira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project falls within the field of economic history and focuses on analyzingthe public financing of the Brazilian Empire for the years 1837 to 1850. It was a historicalmoment that presented two main characteristics that will be interrelated here: the formation ofthe Brazilian national State and the resumption of the transatlantic slave trade, prohibited bythe Feijó Law of 1831. The objective of the project is to connect the composition of the imperialbudget through the issuance of public debt bonds with the capital arising from the slave trade.The cut-off period delineates a time of particular need for the national coffers, as it was ahistorical moment in which the coffee production was still being set up and, at the same time,revolts and rebellions shook all parts of the new country, notably the Farroupilha in Rio Grandedo Sul. The central hypothesis is that slave traffickers were major buyers of internal debt and,in this sense, were guarantors of the Empire. The exponential growth of trafficking from 1837onwards, it is assumed here, would be closely related to the budgetary role that its capital hadfor the imperial Treasury. Additionally, the conservative and pro-slavery policy created at theend of the Regency period would be, among other factors, a result of this financing. The studyends in 1850, the year in which the Eusébio de Queirós Law was approved, effectively endingslave trade in Brazil.