During the nearly fifty-year reign of Emperor Pedro II, Isabel’s father had carefully avoided directly attacking the institution of slavery permeating Brazil’s sixty-five year old constitutional monarchy. Dom Pedro had nudged, suggested, lead by personal example but consistently sidestepped direct unequivocal political intervention against the slavery he personally abhorred. Even his cautious maneuverings toward abolition had ended in “lamentations and aggressive demonstrations” causing him to be derisively labelled as “the emperor of the Negroes and Indians”.

The newspaper Novidades angrily wrote in May 1888. “There is no one who does not see that the Princess Isabel is the one who is decreeing abolition; there is no one who does not perceive the large part she is playing… “. Many friends and foes agreed. Liberal abolitionist legislator Joaquim Nabuca left the legislative chambers during the debates over the proposed abolition law and “led a bravo to the Imperial Princess” to large waiting crowds.

Neither Emperor Dom Pedro II nor Crown Princess Isabel were able to save Brazil’s constitutional monarchy but by legally ending slavery within the legal guidelines of the existing government they validated and legitimized public support for the national governments that followed. They also presented a remarkable and unique political partnership that even during their lifetime was little understood, studied or appreciated.