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The Brazilian historiography is well aware of the French influence on imperial Brazil, but this influence was also being felt in the world of agrarian-oriented ideas. It is partticularly easy to observe this phenomenon through the study of the writings of André Rebouças (1838-1898), a liberal abolitionist. Rebouças made reference to physiocratic authors such as Jacques Anne Robert Turgot (1727-1781) and Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours (1739-1817). In the article, we analyze the extent to which these references helped Rebouças in his attempt to build an agrarian project based on the acquisition of landed property as the foundation of social progress. We will also try to outline how Rebouças adapted the physiocratic program to the Brazilian context of the end of the 19th century, characterized by the growing movement to abolish slavery.