The ‘Labour Question’ in Nineteenth Century Brazil: railways, export agriculture and labour scarcity

This paper examines changing patterns of labour relations innineteenth-century Brazil associated with the building of railways andexpansion of export agriculture. It addresses the 1850s-1880s period,decades when the `labour question' became a pressing issue forcontemporaries. The extinction of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1850posed the problem of finding alternative supplies of labour at a time ofincreasing agro-export production. In 1852 effective action to start thebuilding of railways was taken. As part of efforts to improve conditions inthe sugar and coffee sectors, several concessions were approved. Fromthe middle of the century through to the 1870s, the expansion of coffeecultivation and railway construction were closely inter-related phenomenain the southern provinces of Brazil and shaped the debate about labour.[...]