Brazil was the most common destination for enslaved Africans brought to the Americas. Historians estimate that more than five million Africans arrived in Brazil between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries when Portugal colonized the territory. During this period, enslaved labor was used throughout Brazilian society. This was especially the case in economic sectors that exported products. These sectors included growing sugar, tobacco, and coffee and mining for gold and diamonds. Enslaved persons would also perform economic activities in urban settings, such as working in markets or carrying out domestic services. 

During the sixteenth century and most of the seventeenth, most labor was performed by indigenous people, who the Portuguese enslaved to work in sugar plantations. It was only in the late seventeenth century that the number of enslaved Africans surpassed that of enslaved indigenous people. At this time, mostly due to religious pressures, the enslavement of indigenous groups became illegal. (Even so, many continued to be illegally enslaved until the nineteenth century.) The late seventeenth century saw the largest number of Africans enter Brazil. Due to the coffee economy, about 2.5 million were forcibly brought to the country between 1800 and 1850, just as the first international laws restricting the Atlantic slave trade began to be implemented. Until the final suppression in 1850, England put severe pressure on the Brazilian authorities. English ships even invaded Brazilian maritime space in search of ships carrying Africans.

Most enslaved persons were unable to free themselves in Brazil. Some estimates suggest an average of between 0.5% and 2% of the enslaved persons could get manumission. This number was higher than anywhere else in the Americas, where the average of manumissions never exceeded 1%. Most of the enslaved people who were manumitted were Brazilian-born women. African women could also buy their freedom if they were able to sell food in urban markets in cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Recife, or Salvador.       

This situation gave rise to the formation of a large free Afro-Brazilian population. To this day, Afro-Brazilians make up most of the Brazilian population. Since the nineteenth century, there have been Afro-Brazilians among journalists, writers, lawyers, engineers, and the military, such as Machado de Assis (1839–1908), Brazil’s most important writer of all times, and the brothers André Rebouças (1838–1898) and Antonio Pereira Rebouças Filho (1839–1873), the first Afro-Brazilians engineers, sons of the lawyer Antonio Pereira Rebouças (1798–1880).

The end of the Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans in 1850 triggered profound changes in Brazil’s demographic, political, social, and economic structures. There was an increase in internal trafficking. Enslaved individuals were sold in large numbers from the northeastern provinces, which were in economic decline, to the central-southern region, which was undergoing a coffee boom. Prices also rose rapidly. This increase restricted access to slave ownership to large landowners who were engaged in export agriculture. The shift, combined with the growing resistance of the enslaved against slavery—expressed in massive collective flights, and several freedom lawsuits against their masters—led to the growth of the abolitionist movement throughout the country. Resistance by the enslaved was fundamental in pushing for the end of slavery during the 1870s and 1880s. Despite pressure from slaveholders, the Brazilian parliament abolished slavery in 1888 without financially compensating the enslavers. With the abolition of slavery in Brazil, the institution that had persisted in the Americas for over 300 years finally ended.

It is indisputable that Brazilian culture was deeply marked by the presence of Africans in religion, music, dance, cuisine, and language. Most Africans in Brazil were Yoruba (West Africa) and Bantu (Kongo-Angola region). They introduced Candomblé and Umbanda, the two main Afro-Brazilian religions, to the martial art/dance of Capoeira, and to the dance/music of Jongo. African influence was also key to the development of samba, a broad term for a combination of music and dance that, in the twentieth century, became the most important expression of Brazilian national identity.  

As in other parts of the Americas, however, the legacy of slavery in Brazil entrenched a racially hierarchical society. Afro-Brazilians were subject to widespread prejudice and systemic inequality. Today, while significant progress has been made, much work remains to achieve full equality—progress that owes much to the persistent efforts and resilience of the Afro-Brazilian community.