“Libertas inaestimabilis res est”: The 1759 Royal Decree and Freedom Suits in Portuguese America

Historiography has long discussed how enslaved people have resorted to judicial ways to gain freedom and better living conditions in the Modern Era. At the end of the 18th century, abolitionist processes gained strength in Europe without, however, extinguishing slavery in the Americas. In Portuguese America, the alvará of January 16, 1759 highlighted the “favor that freedom” had in right and, at the same time, limited the appeals of the causes of freedom to the Tribunais da Relação (Appeals Courts) in Brazil. We start here from the analysis of the alvará, to consider the legal procedures for the petitions that dealt with freedom, as well as the interpretations that made him slaves, lawyers and judges in the second half of the eighteenth century. We argue that, rather than highlighting how invaluable freedom was, the alvará reinforced colonial jurisdiction in the administration of slavery by circumscribing decisions about it to overseas territory. Thus, we discuss the impacts of this regulation on the slave legal culture, as well as its appropriation by a range of subjects.

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