:The Financial Crisis of Abolition

Abstract

Brazil experienced great economic and political transformations in the second half of the nineteenth century. The expansion of coffee production that turned Brazil into the greatest coffee producer in the world occurred at the same time that there was a transformation of the labor force from slaves to free workers of European origin. The abolition of the Atlantic slave trade in 1850 showed the need to find an alternative source of labor for the expanding coffee fields. The difficulties encountered in the substitution for slave labor postponed the abolition of slavery until 1888. John Schulz's book analyzes the financial crisis provoked by this long process of abolition and by the introduction of free labor on the coffee estates. The declared objective of the book is to demonstrate that the great majority of the Brazilian finance ministers, from the middle of the nineteenth century until 1906, however tied to international interests, were not marionettes controlled by foreigners. They defended the interests of the great planters.