Description

Bernardo de Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo, Viconde (later Marquês) de SÁ DA BANDEIRA (1795 – 1876).

Lisbon: Typ. de José Baptista Morando, 1840.

Bernardo de Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo, Viconde (later Marquês) de Sá da Bandeira (1795 – 1876) was one of the towering figures of 19^th century Portugal.  A man of immense intellect, endless energy and polymath talents, he was variously a military hero of the Liberal Wars (1828-34), a five-time Portuguese Prime Minister (1836–1837, 1837–1839, 1865, 1868–1869 and 1870), a sometime Foreign and Colonial Minister, an esteemed expert on colonial affairs, a foremost cartographer of Africa, as well as being the country’s leading Abolitionist.

While Sá da Bandeira sympathized with Britain’s desire to resolutely ban the slave trade and fought valiantly to end Portugal’s participation in that ignoble commerce, he was enraged by the Palmerston Act (1839).  He believed that Portugal must be cleansed of the slave trade through calm, diplomatic, and even gradual means, as sudden moves risked inflaming the country’s powerful colonial lobby.  He saw the Palmerston Act as coercive and deeply ungracious, and not the behaviour of Portugal’s oldest ally.  Not only did it offend Portuguese sovereignty and dignity, but it risked discrediting the Abolitionist movement within Portugal, as some might possibly equate it with being anti-patriotic.

This work is the first printing of Sá da Bandeira’s articulate and ingenious protest against the Palmerton Act, which he held to be an “act of usurpation on the part of the British Government of the sovereign rights of a nation independent of the Crown of Great Britain.”  Blessed by his own ultimate insider’s knowledge of the recent Ango-Portuguese negotiations, his vast understanding of the slave trade, while refencing many primary sources, Sá da Bandeira argues that the Palmerston Act was illegal, reckless and impractical.  He blames Britain’s hostile, bullying tone for the failure of the recent negotiations, while painting Sá da Bandeira’s late government as a sincere foe of the slave trade, as well as an ardent defender of Portugal’s sovereignty.

In Portugal, the present work proved highly influential, such that Sá da Bandeira’s version of events were commonly accepted as fact.  The work also gained much attention in Britain, where the later English translation, The Slave Trade and Lord Palmerston’s Bill (1840), caused many to question whether the Palmerston Act was indeed to best way to get Portugal to exit the slave trade.  The work’s rhetorical effect was a factor in causing both Britain and Portugal to eventually return to the negotiating table, leading to the signing of the Anglo-Portuguese anti-slave trade treaty of July 3, 1842.

A Note on Rarity

This work is institutionally scarce, we can trace examples in around dozen libraries, while it is very rare on the market, as we cannot trace any sales records.

References: Biblioteca Nacioanl de Portugal (7 examples): ex. H.G. 13948//7 V. and H.G. 16441//12 V., etc.; British Library: 8157.c.2.; New York Public Library: SEKH (Sá da Bandeira, de. Trafico da escravatura e o bill de Lord Palmerston); Widener Library, Harvard University: KKQ205.P46 S2 1997; University of Manchester Library: R223226; Bodleian Library, University of Oxford: (RHO) 100.221 r. 32 (6); University of Southampton: Rare Books (Well. Pamph. 1184); Biblioteca de Arte – Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian: BI 1320; Instituto de Investigacao Cientffica Tropical (Lisboa): CEHU-1608/6; Universidade Católica Portuguesa – Biblioteca João Paulo II: MC-1825; Biblioteca Central da Marinha: 3U812-28; Gabriel B. PAQUETTE, Imperial Portugal in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions: The Luso-Brazilian World, C.1770-1850 (2013), p. 406; Biblioteca da Câmara dos Deputados (Brasília): SYS-577730; OCLC: 959072967; José Baptista de SOUSA, ‘“Anti-Slave Trade Cruzader”: Lord Holland’s Contribution: Portuguese Political and Diplomatic Relations’, Revista de Estudos Anglo-Portugueses/Journal of Anglo-Portuguese Studies, no. 27 (2018), pp. 163-98.