CHAPTER XXVII.
SOUTH AMERICA.
The Portuguese introduced slavery into Brazil
about the year 1558, and the increase of that class of
the population was as rapid as in any part of the newly
discovered country. The treatment of the slaves did
not differ from Jamaica, St. Domingo, and Cuba.
Bazil has given the death-blow to the wicked system which has been so long both her grievous burden and her foul disgrace. Henceforth, every child born in the empire is free, and in twenty years the chains will fall from the limbs of her last surviving slave. By this decree, nearly three million blacks are raised up from the dust; and though but few of this generation can hope to see the day of general emancipation, it is much for them to know that the curse which rested on the parents will no longer be transmitted to the children; it is something that the younger of them have a bright although distant future to look toward and to wait for. "Very likely, too, the dying institution will not be suffered to linger out the whole of the existence which the new law accords to it; as the benefits of free labor to the whole country become appreciated
