Brazil Signs the Golden Law and Becomes the Last Nation in the Americas to Abolish Slavery
Princess Isabel, acting as regent, signs the Lei Aurea in 1888 after decades of gradual measures failed to end an economy built on 40 percent of all enslaved Africans brought to the New World
Quick facts
- Date signed
- May 13, 1888
- Signed by
- Princess Isabel, Regent of Brazil
- Preceding laws
- 1871 Law of Free Birth; 1885 Sexagenarian Law
- Status
- Last country in the Americas to abolish slavery
What happened
Brazil received more enslaved Africans than any other destination in the Americas, and slavery remained central to its economy long after most other nations had abolished it. Reform came in stages: the 1871 Law of Free Birth freed children born to enslaved mothers going forward, and the 1885 Sexagenarian Law freed enslaved people once they reached age sixty, neither of which freed anyone already enslaved and of working age. On May 13, 1888, Princess Isabel, serving as regent while her father Emperor Pedro II was in Europe, signed the Lei Aurea, the Golden Law, abolishing slavery outright throughout Brazil. She had to appoint an entirely new cabinet to get the law passed, since the ministers in power when her regency began refused to discuss the policy with a woman. Brazil's abolition, coming a full 55 years after Britain's and 23 years after the United States', made it the last country in the Americas to end slavery. The law freed roughly 700,000 people still enslaved at the time, but included no land redistribution, no compensation to the formerly enslaved, and no structured path to education or citizenship.
Why it matters
Brazil's abolition closes the chronological arc of legal slavery in the Americas that had opened with the first Portuguese slaving voyages 447 years earlier, and its total absence of support for the newly freed, no land, no wages owed, no citizenship infrastructure, is why historians describe Brazilian abolition as a legal ending without an economic or social one, a pattern that shaped Brazil's racial inequality for generations afterward.
How we know
Brown University Library's Brazil: Five Centuries of Change project documents the Lei Aurea's passage, Isabel's cabinet reshuffle, and the preceding 1871 and 1885 laws using Brazilian legislative records and period accounts of the 1888 signing and public celebration.
Sources
- Brown University Library, Brazil: Five Centuries of Change. 4.3 Abolition · Reputable sourcelibrary.brown.edu · The domain "library.brown.edu" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database (SlaveVoyages). The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database: Methodology · General sourcelegacy.slavevoyages.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Part of a timelineThe Atlantic Slave Trade29 events · Four centuries in which European traders forced an estimated 12.5 million Africans onto ships bound for the Americas, and the enslaved people, revolts, and abolitionists who fought it from the first crossing to the lastView all →