Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1886-09-18
DOM Pgpao,s EXPERIMENT.
Emancipation Of the Slaves His Hobby
Phiianthroplc Intentions > Failure.


Phfianthrople Intentions : Failure.
mo Janeiro Cor. Inter Ocean,
The emancipation OF the slaves has
been the old gentloman's bobby for the
last twenty years, and be has earnestly
desired to see 1t accomplished before his
death. For fifty-three years that he
has been on the throne of Brazil,
longer than any monarch ever reigned
before, and no man was ever more in
terested In accomplishing an object than
he is in releasing the negroes Of Braz il
from the shackels which now bind
them.
He has plantation upon which he has
been endeavoring to demonstrate by
practical experiment that paid labor is
more profitable than slavery. This
plantation was formerly the imperial
residence and is known as Santa Cruz.
1t lies little beyond the city Of
Petropolis, in one of the handsomest 10.
cations in the empire and originally be-
longed to the Jesuits, who obtained it as
grant from the Portuguese govern
ment and erected the buildings; but the
old King Jood, the grandfather of the
emperor, confiscated it when he drove
the Jesuits out Of the country, lived
there and derived an enormous revenue
from the Fazenda. His son Dom Pedro
/ did likewise, The present emperor,
Dom Pedro II, lived there when he was
boy and after he was married. but his
first and only son died in the palace,
and its associations are so sad thai
neither he nor the empress have entered
the walls for many years.
This is the cross that the old emperor
has to bear; but he has devoted this
plantation to an attempt to demonstrate
the blessings of liberty to tho laboring
men, and it is not his fault that hi:
philanthropic experiment has not sue
ceeded. On this plantation he employs
2, 400 slaves, and treats them in thu
most generous and humane manner
pr DIVIDING them with neat and com
modious cabins to live in, educating
their children, giving them all they
want to eat and to wear, and ereditins
them with the labor they perform. Hi,
plan has been that the negroes coult
earn their own freedom if they had /
chance, and he has q system of book
keeping under which each slave i:
charged with his original cost and thu
expense of his maintenance, and cred
tied with the amount of labor he per
forms. When the account balances
the slave is set free; he has earned biz
liberty.
But like most of the emperor's philan
thropie experiments, this has been {
failure. The plantation has kept hin
poor, and has resulted in securing thu
freedom of but very few slaves. The
negroes are not fools, and understand
very well that they are better off Will
such a master than in the condition o
freedmen, and they have worked so un
profitably and made the expenses o
their maintenance so large that seldom
has any one of them ever earned enough
during the year to pay for his keeping
and during the twenty years that tn
emperor has patiently kept up this sys
tenn it is said to have cost him owe
80, 600, 600.
The emperor remains constantly a
Petropolis, and the only thing that car
induce him to come to the city of Rio i
to attend debate on the slavery ques
! ton or some official ceremony.