Why did slavery last longer in the United States, Brazil, and Cuba than in the other republics of the Americas? How did patterns of resistance shape slavery and abolition?

Across the former colonies of Spanish America, the abolition of slavery quickly followed independence. Abolitionist pressure from Britain ended slavery in its Caribbean colonies in 1834, and the British navy suppressed the Atlantic slave trade. But slavery endured well into the nineteenth century in the United States, Cuba, and Brazil. In each of these countries the question of abolition became entwined with the disputes over the nature of government and authority — federal unionism versus states’ rights in the United States, independence for Cuba, and monarchy versus republicanism in Brazil.