Resistance or support for the «cause of humanity»? The Septembrists and the abolition of the slave trade (1836-1842)

Abstract

Traditionally, historiography has attributed the failure of the September abolitionism in the period of 1836-1839 to colonial resistance, the lack of means of action and the absence of real abolitionist sentiments in Portugal. Without questioning the importance of these aspects, which belong to the domain of the obvious, the article attempts to demonstrate that the major obstacle to the development of a drive to combat slave trading lay in the resistance to abolitionism among the metropolitan political elites, and that the pinnacle of this resistance was to be found precisely within Septembrist circles. This aspect of the problem has gone relatively unnoticed, not only because Portuguese society at the time very rarely debated the problem of abolishing the slave trade, but also because the arguments which, in spite of everything, did arise were presented in entirely nationalistic terms, thereby obscuring the ideological context: add to this the fact that historiographical analyses have concentrated on Sá da Bandeira, the person principally responsible for the abolitionist decree of 1836, leaving in the shade the ideological terrain in which the viscount moved and with which he had to compromise or struggle. With the aim of clarifying this terrain and gauging its political weight, the article proposes to delve into the journalistic and parliamentary debate, focusing particularly on the period of 1838-1840, an epoch which is abnormally rich from a documentary viewpoint. From this investigation it become clear that, behind these pious expressions of philanthropy or heightened nationalism, there were various arguments that were clearly adverse to suppression of the slave trade. Significantly, these elements are found in suppressed form in the newspapers and among the Septembrist parliamentary speakers. The article sees to define these elements, locate their emergence and origins, to show how they closely link with extremely efficient nationalist ideological pivots (such as that of the «English conspiracy» or of the «national dignity»). It also seeks to show how the anti-abolitionist argument, both in the press and in Parliament, served a strategy aimed not at putting an end to the slave trade but, on the contrary, prolonging it for many more years.