One of the most significant early landmarks on the road toward a modern society in Brazil was the end of Negro slavery in 1888. Although, seen in the context of world history, slavery may be considered a part of the mercantile expansion of Europe characteristic of the modern era, in Brazil few institutions were more clearly a part of the traditional order. It was the most eloquent manifestation of the belief in a man's immutable social position and it was the antithesis of individualism. It frustrated attempts to encourage immigration and acted as a brake on economic development. On the other hand, the abolition of slavery strengthened the modernizing, European-oriented cities that had worked for it and weakened the backward countryside. It was the coup de grâce for the sugar zone of the northeast and the old coffee regions of the Paraíba valley, and served to shift power definitely into the hands of those who controlled the new coffee area of São Paulo state. It seriously weakened the monarchy, which until then had been staunchly defended by the slave-owners: the abolitionists had pointedly referred to ‘the slave quarter barons … the buttress of throne and pillory’. Abolition contributed powerfully to economic, social, and political change in Brazil.

It was also the product of beginning change. The two sources of abolitionist sentiment were to be the coffee planters of São Paulo, dissatisfied with the dwindling supply of slaves, and the new groups on the rise within the cities that saw slavery as a threat to their world-view. The planters had to bring under cultivation ever vaster stretches of good coffee land.