Was the emancipation of slaves in Latin America a process propelled by economic reasons (incompatibility with a growing capitalist economy), or by socio-political reasons? Was it a decision taken from above (by elites and the state), or did the slaves contribute to their own emancipation? What happened to the former slaves after emancipation? To what extent could they control their own lives, or did landowners and the state respond in such a way that the achievement of emancipation was at the cost of other things? How important was the factor of ‘race’ in former slave societies after abolition?
S. Drescher, 'Brazilian Abolition in Comparative Perspective', HAHR 68 (1988), 429-460
H.S. Klein, African Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean
R.B. Toplin (ed.), Slavery and Race Relations in Latin America
*L. Bergad, 'The Economic Viability of Sugar Production based on Slave Labor in Cuba', LARR 24:1 (1989), 95-114
F.W. Knight, Slave Society in Nineteenth-Century Cuba
M. Moreno Fraginals, The Sugar-Mill: the socio-economic complex of sugar in Cuba
R.J. Scott, 'Explaining Abolition: contradiction, adaptation and challenge in Cuban slave society', CSSH 26 (1984), 83-111 [also in Moreno Fraginals (ed.), Between Slavery and Free Labor]
R.J. Scott, `Gradual Abolition and the Dynamics of Slave Emancipation in Cuba, 1868-1886', HAHR 63 (1983), 449-477
M. Abreu, ‘Slave Mothers and Freed Children: emancipation and female space in debates on the “Free Womb” law: Rio de Janeiro, 1871’, JLAS 28 (1996), 567-580
B.J. Barickman, ‘Persistence and Decline: slave labour and sugar production in the Bahian Recôncavo, 1850-1888’, JLAS 28 (1996), 581-634
R. Conrad, The Destruction of Slavery in Brazil, 1850-1888
D.T. Graden, ‘An Act “Even of Public Security”: slave resistance, social tensions, and the end of the international slave trade to Brazil, 1835-1856’, HAHR 76 (1996), 249-282
*R. Graham, 'Causes for the Abolition of Negro Slavery in Brazil: an interpretive essay', HAHR 46 (1966), 123-137
J.J. Reis, ‘“The Revolution of the Ganhadores”: urban labour, ethnicity, and the African strike of 1857 in Bahia, Brazil’, JLAS 29 (1997), 355-392
*R.B. Toplin, 'Upheaval, Violence and the Abolition of Slavery in Brazil', HAHR 49 (1969), 617-638
G.R. Andrews, ‘Black Workers in the Export Years: Latin America, 1880-1930’, International Labour and Working-Class History 51 (1997), 7-29
R. Graham, (ed.), The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940
R.J. Scott, 'Exploring the Meaning of Freedom: post-emancipation societies in comparative perspective', HAHR 68 (1988), 407-428
R.J. Scott, `Defining the Boundaries of Freedom in the World of Cane: Cuba, Brazil, and Louisiana after emancipation', AHR 99 (1994), 70-102
G.R. Andrews, 'Black and White Workers: São Paulo, Brazil, 1888-1928', HAHR 68 (1988), 491-524
K.D. Butler, Freedoms Given, Freedoms Won: Afro-Brazilians in post-abolition São Paulo and Salvador
V. Stolcke & M.M. Hall, 'The Introduction of Free Labor on São Paulo Coffee Plantations', JPS 10 (1983), 170-200
J. Casanova, ‘Slavery, the Labor Movement and Spanish Colonialism in Cuba, 1850-1890’, Internat. Review of Social Hist. 40:3 (1995), 367-382
A. de la Fuente, ‘Race and Inequality in Cuba, 1899-1981’, Jnl. Contemp. Hist. 30 (1995), 131-168
A. Helg, Our Rightful Share: the Afro-Cuban struggle for equality, 1886-1912
L.A. Pérez, ‘Politics, Peasants, and People of Color: the 1912 “Race War” in Cuba reconsidered’, HAHR 66 (1986), 509-539