Silences of the law: Customary law and positive law on the manumission of slaves in 19th century Brazil

Historians have unanimously credited Brazil with a particularly generous law: any slave who offered his master his own value in cash acquired his freedom, the owner being obliged to accept the ransom. This law never existed in writing, though the practice was widespread and can certainly be said to have been recognised as customary law. Codified law is a discourse on society, a self-description constructed by the State. In 1835, after the most important slave uprising of the 19th century, the rebellion of the Males in Bahia, the government enacted a law intended to prevent further rebellions. During the liberal period which ran from 1827 to 1837, a time when profound legal changes were taking place, jurisprudence began, however, to recommend such manumissions: a declaration of intent which ultimately emphasises the absence of a basis in law.