Comparative charts between Brazil and the United States race relations abound in the field of racial studies and comparative history. But the practice of comparing these two societies goes beyond the strictly academic milieu. Drawing up a local view based on comparisons with other parts of the world is a common practice in the Atlantic circulation of individuals and ideas. Thus, it is possible to find discourses that systematically oppose Brazil and the United States since the 19th century, whose authors are quite diverse. This thesis seeks to delve into this comparative universe based on a specific guideline: North American visions of a Brazilian racial paradise. The racial paradise consists of the mirage of an idyllic society with two great characteristics: a softer slave system; the absence of legal racial barriers. Pursuing the history of the co-authors of the racial paradise means, therefore, entering the long history of racial democracy, which goes back to dynamics that precede its naming and subsequent denunciation as a myth. Based on the bibliographic review and access to primary sources – such as the press, letters and speeches – historical subjects who produced this vision of the Brazilian Eldorado were identified and analyzed. These interlocutors are arranged in four main periods, between 1833 and 1947: starting with the immediate abolitionists of the pre-Civil War, in 1833; then post-Civil War abolitionists in 1865; in the 1920s, the subjects are black activists who were enthusiastic about migrating to Brazil; Finally, spanning the 1920s to 1947, there are Gilberto Freyre and Frank Tannenbaum, responsible for the scientific consolidation of the racial paradise. The broad sample goes back to the moments of creation and consolidation of the idea of racial democracy, before its increasing colapse during the second half of the 20th century. The objective is to analyze how these subjects, when portraying Brazil as a racial paradise, presented the legal aspects of this idyllic society. It is immediately concluded that the two dimensions that characterize the racial paradise are quite intricate with the law. On the one hand, the notion of soft slavery is supported by the news of a high rate of manumissions, which would have been made possible by norms and institutions systematically favorable to freedom. On the other hand, the image of a society in which free black men and women would not have any racial barrier against them often uses the absence of a law preventing access to military, ecclesiastical and political positions as a defining parameter. But in addition to the endorsement, during the long trajectory of US discourses on racial paradise, there were movements to contest this same image, and in them legal criticism proved to be a central argument. From the strategic polyvalence of the speeches, it was understood that law and race were associated by subjects in a wide political spectrum, but even if the tactical signs were inverted, elements of continuity remained.