Brazil: Studio portrait of a prosperous Portuguese Brazilian woman seated in her litter, flanked by two rather elegantly dressed slaves, Sao Paulo, c.1860

Slavery in Brazil began long before the first Portuguese settlement was established in 1532, as members of one tribe would enslave captured members of another. Later, colonists were heavily dependent on indigenous labor during the initial phases of settlement to maintain the subsistence economy, and natives were primarily captured by Portuguese Jesuit expeditions called bandeiras. The importation of African slaves began midway through the 16th century, but the enslavement of indigenous peoples continued well into the 17th and 18th centuries.

Brazil imported the largest number of enslaved Africans during the Atlantic slave trade era, an estimated 4.9 million slaves from Africa came to Brazil during the period from 1501 to 1856. Until the early 1850s, most enslaved Africans who arrived on Brazilian shores were forced to embark at West Central African ports, especially in Luanda (present-day Angola). Today, with the exception of Nigeria, the largest population of people of African descent is in Brazil.

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