Pseudoerasmus

Brazilian slavery withered away largely because of the prohibition of the slave trade after strong British pressure in 1850 and the Free Womb Law in 1871: politics were essential to the abolition. Didn’t get your point here...

The productivity of Brazilian slaves was high (even less than the productivity of American slaves). This, in fact, explains the owners' resistance to ending slavery 1/2

It is a well-known fact that in the second half of the nineteenth century the price of slaves fell, but rents remained high. This shows that the farmers anticipated the end of slavery, but that the slave remained productive 2/2

I just meant slavery in Brazil did not go out with a bang, like in the USA. But now that you mention it, Thiago: the abolition of the int'l slave trade did not undermine slavery in the USA, so why did it in Brazil?

I say because Brazilian slave agriculture was not as productive as US slave agriculture, and slave labour was less efficiently allocated in Brazil than in the USA. The expansion of US cotton was a supply-side phenomenon (productivity growth), but the Brazilian sugar expansion+

+in the 19th century was a demand-side phenomenon (it got a demand boost from the abolition of slavery in British West Indies + the Haitian Revolution)

Coffee expansion, you mean?

before the big coffee expansion you had the reinvigouration of the sugar industry thanks to the end of slavery in the West Indies.