“O castigo que regenera”

This article examines Júlio Dinis’s 1867 novel, Uma família inglesa: Cenas da vida do Porto as a commentary on imperial relations between Portugal and its imposing British ally in the nineteenth century, specifically as a response to England’s increasing pressures for the abolition of the Portuguese slave trade. A close reading of the text reveals a commentary in line with mid-century Regenerationist discourses urging for Portugal’s adoption of the basic tenets of British colonialism, including the active suppression of the slave trade, as a means of salvaging Portugal’s international reputation and achieving a place among the economically modern and socially progressive imperial nations. More broadly, Uma família inglesa’s appeals for abolition reflect the imperial worldview of the nineteenth-century Portuguese metropolis by which colonial exploitation and its victims were erased from imperial discourses that focused instead on national sovereignty, international prestige, and economic regeneration.