6 Decree of 12 April 1832, Regulations on the execution of the Law of 7 November 1831 regarding the slave trade, article 10 .  
from 19 April 1842 to 7 May 1844. As Mamigonian has observed, there were no regulations regarding an employer's practice of renting out the services of a liberated African. Yet such renting out of liberated Africans by their employers was widespread and very lucrative for the latter. The salary that was supposed to be paid to the government for a liberated African for one year could thus be collected in less than a month. In Miquelina's case, the amount to be paid to the government was 12,000 réis, while renting her out gave her employer from 16,000 réis to 20,000 réis per month. ${ }^{7}$ Although it was not illegal to rent out the services of liberated Africans, the issue raised by Miquelina and her representative was that she was described as a slave in the receipts, using the words 'my slave, my black woman' and 'a black woman of mine' (minha escrava, minha preta, uma preta minha). ${ }^{8}$ In short, she was being treated as a slave, and this was the basis of their argument. The problem Miquelina and Jose Gomes da Silva cited was not that her services were exploited through rent, but that the arrangement was based on a false claim of enslavement.