Portuguese colonists in Brazil needed slaves for their sugar plantations and gold and silver mines. At first, they enslaved the Indians of Brazil. The Indians suffered greatly under the miserable conditions and were often too ill to work. So the Portuguese soon turned to Africans.

By the 19th century, Brazil had some 2 million slaves—half of the country's entire population. Brazil had become one of the greatest slaveholding nations in the New World.

Many Brazilian plantation owners lived in distant cities and left overseers in charge of the plantations. Overseers had no financial reason to keep slaves healthy, and often treated them brutally. The average life span for a slave in Brazil was just seven years.

The Catholic Church improved some aspects of slaves' lives. The Church encouraged proper church marriages among slaves. It also opposed the separation of families. However, the Brazilian slave trade did not end until the 1850s and the slaves were not freed until 1888.