Kevin,

Thanks for that - I didn't know that the US abolished the slave trade in 1807-8, so thank you.

Slavery wasn't abolished in Brazil until 1888, and it didn't abolished the slave trade until 1866; while according to Wikipedia - that infallible authority! - there are more people of African descent living today in Brazil than in any country in the world except for Nigeria... The same source says that some 40 per cent of all African slaves who survived the Atlantic crossing ended up in Brazil, compared to less than 4 per cent who ended up in the United States. (I don't know if those figures are accurate - it is way out of my field - but they certainly catch the attention).