I was listening to an episode of Behind the Bastards about the slave labor used by Volkswagen in the 1970s and 1980s and this fact came up. Here’s the relevant Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Brazil
Excerpt:
Out of the 12 million Africans who were forcibly brought to the New World, approximately 5.5 million were brought to Brazil between 1540 and the 1860s.
we have entire slums to put their descendants in. we were also one of the last countries (if not the last) to officially abolish enslavement.
we desperately needed to make the lords and european empires richer, i guess.
not much different today, minimum wage in brazil and the 6por1 regime is honestly still akin to slavery, except its for billionaires and the us empire now.
I want to find a book or documentary here soon.
Las venas abiertas de America Latina is a very good book about just this.
it’s somewhat outdated and doesn’t go too deep into neoliberalism, which is the new form for imperialism, but it’s a good book nonetheless.