The Lei Áurea (English: Golden Law), adopted…

The Lei Áurea (English: Golden Law), adopted on May 13, 1888, as the law that abolishes slavery in Brazil, is signed by Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil (1846–1921), an opponent of slavery, who acts as regent to Emperor Pedro II, who is in Europe.

The Lei Áurea had been preceded by the Rio Branco Law of September 28, 1871 ("the Law of Free Birth"), which freed all children born to slave parents, and by the Saraiva-Cotegipe Law (also known as "the Law of Sexagenarians"), of September 28, 1885, that freed slaves when they reached the age of sixty.

Brazil has won three international wars during the temperate fifty-eight-year reign of the stern, scholarly Pedro II, Pedro II (the Platine War, the Uruguayan War and the Paraguayan War)—,despite the loss of Cisplatina in 1828 when it became an independent nation known as Uruguay—and has witnessed the consolidation of representative democracy, mainly due to successive elections and unrestricted freedom of the press.

Most important is the extinguishing of slavery, after a slow but steady process that had begun with the end of the international traffic in slaves in 1850 after pressure by Britain, and ending with the complete abolition of slavery in 1888.

This will lead to the monarchy’s bloodless overthrow the following year by a coalition of planters and liberals.