This, however, she managed to effect in a manner, as is
frequently the case with well-intentioned persons, which wrought no
little mischief to her own interests.
Humane and of advanced ideas, Princess Isabel had always regarded the
slave trade with abhorrence. The Emperor Pedro himself had approved of
the conditions very little more. It is certain, indeed, that he had
intended ultimately to do away with this state of affairs by a gradual
series of moves, so as to leave the general industrial situation
unaffected. Princess Isabel, on the other hand, favoured the idea of an
immediate uprooting of the evil.
As it happened, some steps had already been taken which must in the end,
of themselves, have done away with slavery; thus, it had been decreed in
1871 that every child of a slave born after that time was free. This was
not sufficient for the warm-hearted daughter of the Emperor. In her
impatience to free the older generation from their shackles, Princess
Isabel determined on a general abolition forthwith. In 1888,
notwithstanding the entreaties and warnings of her Ministers, she issued
a decree to this effect, by which it is said that 720,000 slaves became
emancipated.
At the time remarkably little stir was caused by this upheaval of the
industrial status; but there is no doubt that the measure alienated the
sympathies of the most important class of all--that of the landowners,
who were now quite determined that the Princess and her husband should
never come to the throne of Brazil.
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