The Atlantic Slave Trade as Seen from the Consulate General of Brazil in New York, 1850–ca. 1860

Abstract This article utilizes Brazilian consular correspondence to illustrate how the formal government service dedicated to espionage organized by Brazilian imperial diplomats monitored US-based slave traders and shared information about their activities with other governments, particularly Britain's. I argue that by doing so, the Brazilian Empire aimed to prevent the reappearance in Brazil of the Atlantic slave trade, which had been made illegal in 1850. They also aimed to protect the Brazilian slave regime from international abolitionist pressure by framing slavery in Brazil as a purely domestic matter, given that Brazil no longer received enslaved people from Africa.