# Africa-Brazil diaspora and displacements within the Brazilian territory: fifteenth to nineteenth centuries  
The first half of the nineteenth century was characterized by various treaties for the abolition of the slave trade, which in Brazil occurred only in 1850. The great extent of illegal and clandestine activity means that the statistical data available on demographic movements is very inaccurate. Owing to European geopolitical pressures, this was the period in which bilateral links between the African and American continents unravelled, with the destruction of the triangular trade routes between America, Africa and Europe. Brazil nevertheless continued to be a slaveholding country for 66 years (and the United States of America for over 90 years) following independence. The fact that this political, economic and territorial structure was maintained in the country for nearly four centuries, along with the sheer number (although not properly quantified) of Africans imported up until 1850, demonstrates the extent to which the slave society was able to stabilize and develop, even in a context of political conflicts and economic and social contradictions.