1871 | Human Rights, Social Justice
Human Rights, Social Justice
The Rio Branco law adopted by Brazil's cabinet September 28 makes newborn children of slaves free from the moment they are born. The emperor Pedro II freed all of his own slaves some 30 years ago and proclaims the "law of the free womb," but at least 3,000 families have moved to Brazil from the former Confederate states; coffee and sugar planters fight outright abolition (see 1888).
Scottish missionary-explorer David Livingstone sees hundreds of African women shot dead by Arab slavers or drowned in the Lualaba River at Nyangwe while trying to escape (see 1869). He sends home an account of the incident to England where indignant efforts are made to force suppression of the slave trade by the sultan of Zanzibar (see 1873).
Japan's new Meiji government passes a law permitting intermarriage between people of different social classes. Up to now, the shi (samurai), the no (farmers), the ko (craftsmen), and the sho (merchants) have been kept separate, the groups being distinguished by different clothing, different haircuts, different food, different houses, and different ways of speaking. Under the new law, any girl can marry a samurai, but, as with all brides, any money or property she inherits belongs automatically to him, and should anything happen to her their children belong to the husband's family. As long as her mother-in-law is alive, her husband may turn his earnings over to his mother, the mother determines how the money is to be spent, and she may order her son to divorce his wife. The law permits anyone to cut their hair but is soon amended to prohibit women from cutting hair.
The Emancipation Act passed by Japan's Diet outlaws discrimination against the burakumin—outcasts who live in thousands of segregated ghetto-like communities throughout the country, working at ill-paid, unskilled jobs in abbatoirs, tanneries, and the like that others shun, just as they have done since feudal times. Despite the new law, the untouchables will for more than a century be denied access to other jobs, forced to wear distinguishing clothes and hair styles, and barred from public schools and non-ghetto residential areas (see 1922).
A race riot at Los Angeles leaves more than a dozen Chinese dead and many injured (see San Francisco, 1871; 1877).
The Indian Appropriation Act passed by Congress March 3 makes Indians wards of the federal government and discontinues the practice of according full treaty status to agreements made with tribal leaders. The act does not abrogate existing treaties, but it forbids recognition of Indian tribes as nations or independent powers.
General George Crook, 41, assumes command of the army in Arizona Territory, uses other Apache as scouts, tracks down the Chiricahua Apache chief Cochise, and forces him to surrender (see 1862; 1872).