[TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE / PORTUGUESE COLONIALISM / BRITISH ABOLITIONISM] Resposta á Sociedade Anti-Esclavista de Londres [i.e., Reply to the Anti-Slavery Society of London]

CORTE REAL, JOSÉ ALBERTO HOMEM DA CUNHA (1832-1885).

Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa / Typographia de Christovão Augusto Rodrigues, Lisboa, 21 de Junho de 1884.

Original stitched pinkish wrappers. Roy. 8vo. (23,5 x 15,5 cm). In Portuguese. 23 p. Somewhat soiled and age-toned on wrappers, with light staining and creasing; edges chipped and frayed, with several small marginal tears and losses, particularly to the fore-edge. Spine worn. Internally very clean. Overall, a good copy.

A scarce and polemical Portuguese response to the London Anti-Slavery Society, written to refute its accusations concerning the persistence of slavery and the slave trade under Portuguese colonial rule. Corte Real challenges the Society's representation of Portugal as a slave-holding colonial power, defending Portuguese colonial administration and turning the accusation upon its British critics, whose campaign he presents as misleading and politically motivated.

Corte Real was himself a veteran of the Portuguese colonial administration. Born in Coimbra in 1832 and trained in law at the University of Coimbra, he served as Secretary-General of the Government of Macau and Timor from 1877 to 1883, and subsequently as Portuguese chargé d'affaires in China, Japan and Siam. Closely involved in the administration of Macau, he also wrote on China, Macau and the tea trade and was a member of the Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa. His defence of Portuguese colonial policy against the accusations of British abolitionists thus came not from a detached commentator, but from a former senior colonial official with extensive experience in Portuguese Asia.

Published by the Lisbon Geographical Society in 1884, the pamphlet appeared on the eve of the Berlin Conference, when slavery, the African slave trade, and European colonial expansion were subjects of intense international debate. A contemporary notice remarked that Corte Real's response would have possessed still greater importance had it appeared before the Conference.

Scarce on the market.

Sources: O Occidente, no. 228, 21 April 1885, p. 96; Journal of the Statistical Society of London, vol. 48, 1885; Boletín de la Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid, vol. XXI, 1886; biographical records of the University of Coimbra and Macau Memory concerning José Alberto Homem da Cunha Corte Real.