Closing the Borders to African Americans: Brazilian Slavery and the Fear of Race War

• In Event: “Domestic wars” in security affairs

Abstract

In 1865, the Brazilian imperial government learned about the intentions of an African American man from Alabama to immigrate to Brazil. Henry Hunter petitioned the Brazilian Consul in New York for a passport, but had his entry denied as did so many foreign-born people of color before him. This paper examines Hunter’s case and explores how a persistent ban on the emigration of free Africans to Brazil directly influenced the legal construction of sovereignty and citizenship in the Second Empire. Envisioning Brazil as one of the theaters of operations of the American Civil War, I will discuss how U.S. emancipation drove Brazilian state forces to retrench in the face of widespread fear of slave unrest and close the country’s borders to African Americans in the 1860s. Relying on an 1831 law, Brazilian authorities undermined Union plans of black colonization of the Amazon and Confederate projects of relocating their slaves to Brazil. For African descendants, however, the ban entailed specific ways of practicing politics and tracing borders of belonging throughout the Atlantic world. Black travelers like Henry Hunter suffered greatly from international policies targeted at their social networks, families, and livelihoods. Therefore, I study their stories as a way to further complicate our understanding of Atlantic emancipations and the meanings of freedom in post-abolition societies.

Author

• Isadora M Mota, University of Miami