As the elder daughter of an emperor whose wife had presented him with no
sons, Isabel stood to inherit the monarchy of Brazil with the passing of
Dom Pedro II. On three separate occasions, Isabel was named regent, or
head of state, when her father was required to leave the country for
extended periods. On each occasion, she served as the dutiful daughter,
following her father's instructions to the letter and resisting any
attempts at personal aggrandizement. During her third regency, as her
father recuperated in Europe, rather than accumulate personal power and
oppose the forces of republicanism and abolition, Isabel personally led
the struggle to pass the Gold Law of 1888 abolishing slavery throughout
Brazil, thus ridding the country of one of the institutions upon which
traditional monarchical Brazil was based and speeding the downfall of
the monarchy, the monarchy she would inherit, in 1889. Princess Isabel
of Brazil examines Isabel's role as an extraordinary woman who had
access to material wealth and education and power, in patriarchal
nineteenth-century Brazil. Professor Barman looks at how her life was
constrained by her subordinate roles as daughter, wife, mother, and even
as empress-in-waiting, using the fascinating career of Isabel to examine
the interplay of gender and power in the nineteenth century. This new
book is an excellent resource for courses biography, women's studies,
and Latin American history courses.