Coming from an international background, I have never really studied slavery in the USA. My focus has always been on slavery in Brazil. It is extremely interesting to see that they were already talking about freeing slaves in the 18th century while in Brazil, it happened almost one hundred years later. Basically, I wanted to know how did the new laws in the USA affect slavery in Brazil. We know today that american culture influences Brazil in many ways and so, I wanted to know if this was the case back then. One might say that since it happened almost one hundred years later, that Brazil was not that influences, however considering how slow information and people travelled at that time, a point can be made that Brazil was in fact influences by the USA. I understand that our focus in this course is not about the abolition of slavery in the rest of the world, however I always try to relate my classes to personal things. With that, I think that this research question is completely valid. From the readings we did in the class and my own knowledge from high school I do believe that question could be answered. There are many sources available online about slavery abolition in Brazil since it came a bit later than in the USA. The next steps would be to research more about abolition in both countries, which we will already be doing in this class with the US and I could do in my own time about Brazil.
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There is an excellent book by Matthew Karp called _This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy_ that delves into how the Confederacy looked to other countries in Latin America, like Brazil, as a way to form a sort of cooperative alliance to protect and expand their slave societies. Although the American South wielded immense political power prior to seceding from the Union, Karp shows how the Confederacy’s weak infrastructure contributed to its demise and inability to form international alliances due to global abolition efforts. Its a really fascinating study if you are interested in learning more about the transnational scope of slavery!