Luiz Gama V. Slavery: A Black Lawyer Fighting for Freedom and Justice in Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-74978-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 6, 468 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Max Planck Studies in Global Legal History of the Iberian Worlds

Imagine a Black lawyer, once enslaved, standing in a 19th-century Brazilian courtroom and defeating slaveholders with their own laws. Luiz Gama v. Slavery tells the extraordinary story of Luiz Gama, a fearless abolitionist who used the legal system to free hundreds of enslaved people and redefine justice in a slaveholding society. Drawing on hundreds of rare court records, petitions, and long-forgotten legal writings, this volume highlights Gama’s legal genius and political courage.

The award-winning research behind this volume offers more than a biography—this work provides a new history of law, race, and freedom in Brazil. It traces Gama’s odyssey from bondage to liberation, and his transformation of the courtroom into a battlefield for emancipation.

Autoren/Hrsg.

de Lima, Bruno Rodrigues

Fachgebiete

• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtsgeschichte, Recht der Antike
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Geschichte der Sklaverei

Über Autor(innen)

Bruno Rodrigues de Lima, Ph.D.s from the University of Frankfurt (2022) and the University of Flensburg (2024), has published widely on law, slavery, and freedom in Brazil, and edited The Complete Works of Luiz Gama (11 volumes). At the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, his current work focuses on the legal dimensions of deforestation and land conflicts in the Amazon.