Proclaimed Emperor soon afterwards, Pedro ruled for nine years and then abdicated in favour of his five-year-old child, Dom Pedro _segundo_. To this rather stormy period of control is due the commencement of deliberate colonization of Europeans into Brazil; it was a policy widely continued later on by Pedro II, and afterwards adopted both by the Federal Government and by separate States of the Union. A regency lasted until Pedro was fourteen years old, the most remarkable hand on the reins of power meanwhile being that of the astute priest, Father Diogo Feijó. Pedro II endeared himself to Brazil by his kindly and tactful spirit, his genial broadmindedness; he was a scholar by instinct, and did his best to advance Brazil by the encouragement of railroad building, invitation to foreign capital, and the throwing open of wide spaces of southern land to good class immigrants. It was during his reign that the English, who had established themselves firmly during the first monarchical periods, sending ships regularly and opening markets for Brazilian products, were followed by the commercial French and later by the German merchant. The industrial and educational advance of Brazil is largely owing to the personal initiative of Dom Pedro II. His reign was one of the longest in history, from 1831 to 1889, and the development within this period includes inauguration of city tramways as well as railroads; the discovery that coffee would grow in Brazil and its systematic cultivation; discovery of the properties of rubber; the introduction of factories; use of hydraulic power. Following the world agitation against slavery, Brazil in 1854 forbade the introduction of negroes; there were however still large numbers of these people in bondage as well as a much larger number free. Public feeling was much excited about the question in the eighties, and at last in 1888, when Dom Pedro during a period of illness had made his daughter, the Princess Isabel, Regent, the powerful influence of many highminded Brazilians was brought to bear, and the decree of abolition was signed.