The Sounds of Silence: Nineteenth-Century Portugal and the Abolition of the Slave Trade (review)

Between 1810 and 1868, ships with Portuguese flags carried approximately two-thirds of the African slaves destined for the Americas; yet, considerably less is known about this period of Luso-slavocracy than is known about British anti-slavery efforts or the closing of slave importations in Brazil and Cuba. Taking the hunch that Portuguese opinion and politics should also be considered in this story, João Pedro Marques set out to explore archives in Lisbon and London. In Sounds of Silence, a translated edition of a book published in Portuguese in 1999, readers will find a pioneering and deeply researched work, relevant to modern European history, the Atlantic World, and slavery.

Marques begins his book by looking at the period between 1800 and 1840 to argue against the idea of Portuguese indifference or an internal ideological void to the slave trade (Chapters 1–4). He convincingly shows that the “sounds of silence” was instead a clearly articulated position of “tolerationism” toward the “odious commerce,” although this toleration had different shades of reason and degrees of emphasis. After 1840, attitudes changed. Portuguese statesmen called for the end of the slave trade as a way to defend the nation’s honor in the face of mounting pressure from England (Chapter 5). On this point, Marques disagrees with an older Marxist interpretation that views these actions as a way to alter and expand colonial exploitation in a humanitarian disguise. The Portuguese were so disinterested in developmental projects for their African colonies, in fact, that ending the slave trade seemed to have aroused few expectations for that investments would increase (Chapter 6). Within these chronology and claims we find the book’s chief merit; that is, it does not downplay the importance of external events to Portuguese action, but instead it shows that an internal debate regarding slave trading emerged, evolved, and eventually had a role to play. For example, anti-slave trading action, such as seizures of slaving vessels by the Portuguese Armada in the 1840s, was a product of both external pressure and internal design.

Chapters 1 and 6 are particularly easy to read and offer enthralling vignettes of attitudes toward slavery and colonialism in the nineteenth century. These chapters might make good assignments for high-level undergraduate surveys. Additionally, undergraduates could benefit from a discussion of the author’s methods and choice of primary sources, especially when it comes to his interpretation of public opinion. Marques admits that he remains “deliberately close to the documents,” an approach that should be of value to graduate students exploring the overlap of politics and elite ideology. For specialists interested in Europe and the Atlantic world, Sounds of Silence should be included with recent publications by Paul Kielstra, David Murray, and Johannes Postma on British, Spanish, and Dutch slave trading. This group is quickly changing and expanding our knowledge of Europe’s role in both perpetuating and ending the slave trade.

Marques supports his position with evidence taken from years of laborious analysis of dense newspapers and lengthy diplomatic papers. The result is rich synthesis of unearthed ideas, but one that sometimes insufficiently engages wider scholarly discussions. Some of this might be attributable to a lack of interest on his part. It appears that the terrain of racial ideology was shifting, as evidenced by the words of supporters and opponents of slave trading that Marques quotes, yet he portrays racial ideas of Africans as static and unimportant, unlike the dynamic ideas of the trade. Other disengagements stem from the decision not to update this translated edition. A quick look at the bibliography reveals that little attention has been paid to research after 1999. For example, when Marques compares the sharp complaints regarding the 1810 and 1815 Anglo-Portuguese treaties coming from Bahia to the muted responses coming from Rio de Janeiro, he does...