Uma região mineradora. Minas Gerais, Brasil, segunda metade do século XIX

This essay examines the interdependence between the British mining companies and the local societies in the province of Minas Gerais, during the nineteenth century. On the one hand, the towns and the labor market have developed according to the mining companies, revived by their presence, a region economically in decadence since the late eighteenth century. On the other hand, these great British companies depended on the local worker market - slave and free labor – of the basic staples, produced in the vicinity, and of various types of services provided by local residents. The aim is to show the adjustments made by these companies in order to circumvent the laws promulgated in Britain against slavery, as well as the changes that occurred in the Brazilian labor market during the long process of the abolition of slavery. The article uses the unpublished travel journal of the German merchant Ernst Hasenclever and the travel report of the British Consul Richard Burton as primary sources. Both visited the region in the nineteenth century