The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1889-06-12
'RICE 5 CENTS.
DOM PgpRo's EXPERIMENT.
emancipation OF the Slaves His Hobby
PhnanthropIc Intentions n Failure


CRio Janejro Cor. Inter ocean,
The emancipation of the slaves has
cen the old gentleman's hobby for the
T. st twenty years, and he has earnestly
desired to see it accomplished before his
Gath. For fifty-three years that ES
Las been on the throne of Brazil,
longer than any monarch ever relgned
before, and no man was ever more in
terested in accomplishing an object than
he is in releasing the negroes of Braz u
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 CruA
1t lies a little beyond the city Of
Petropolis, in one OF the handsOmest lOa
cations in the empire and originally be-
longed to the Jesuits, who obtained It a.
a grant from the Portuguese govern
ment and erected the buildings; but the
old King JOOd, the grandfather of the
emperor, coniscated 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
q boy and after he was married, but his
first and only son died in the palace,
and its associations are so sad that
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 the laborinS
men, and IL is not his fault that his
philanthrOpic experiment has not sue.
ceeded. On this plantation he employs
2,4G0 slaves, and treats them in the
most generous and humane manner,
providing them with neat and com
modious cabins to live in, educating
their children, giving them all they
want to eat and to wear, and creditiIs
them with the labor they perform Hi1
plan has been that the negroes could
earn their own freedom if they had 3
chance, and he has a system of book
keeping under which each slave is
charged with his original cost and the
expense of his maintenance, and cred
tied with the amount of labor he per-
&9rms. When the account balances,
SEs slave is set free; he has earned his
liberty.
But like most of the emperor's philan-
thropio experiments, this has been a
failure. The plantation has kept him
poor, and has resulted in securing the
freedom of but very few slaves. The
negroes are not fools, and understand
very well that they are better off with
such a master than in the condition of
freedmen, and they have worked so I'M
proftably and made the expenses of
sheir maintenance sc .age' that ssse7tS5som
has any one of thsui ever earned enough
during the year 20 pay for his keeping,
aud during the twenty years that the
emperor has patiently kept up this sys.
tem it is said to have cost him over
~, 900, 600.
FGe emperor remains constantly at
PetfopoHs, and the only thing that can
induce him 10 come to the city of Rio is
= attend debate on the slavery ques-
on or some official ceremony.