Asiento de Negros
[1] The Spanish Empire rarely engaged in the transatlantic slave trade directly from Africa itself, choosing instead to contract out the importation to foreign merchants from nations more prominent in that part of the world, typically Portuguese and Genoese, but later the Dutch, French, and British.
The original impetus to import enslaved Africans was to relieve the indigenous inhabitants of the colonies from the labour demands of Spanish colonists.
An asiento covered one or a combination of three specific transactions: an unsecured short-term loan, a transfer of payment, and a currency exchange contract.
The participant bankers in Seville, Lisbon, Republic of Genoa and Amsterdam, in turn, drew on the profits and direct investments obtained from a large number of Atlantic merchants.
[9] In exchange for a set of scheduled payments, merchants and financiers were given the right to collect relevant taxes or oversee the trade in those commodities that fell under the monarch's prerogative.
The first asiento for selling slaves was drawn up in August 1518, granting a Flemish favourite of Charles, Laurent de Gouvenot, a monopoly on importing enslaved Africans for eight years with a maximum of 4,000.
[14][15] The Casa de Contratación in Seville controlled both trade and immigration to the New World, excluding Jews, conversos, Muslims, and foreigners.
Spanish America was a major market for African slaves, including many of whom exceeded the quota of the asiento license and were illegally sold.
[21] Angolan dominance of the trade was pronounced after 1615 when the governors of Angola, starting with Bento Banha Cardoso, allied with Imbangala mercenaries to wreak havoc on the local African powers.
[22] The earlier asiento period came to an end in 1640 when Portugal revolted against Spain, though even then the Portuguese continued to supply Spanish colonies.
The Spanish awarded large contracts for the asiento to the Genovese banker Grillo in the 1660s and the Dutch West India Company in 1675 rather than Portuguese merchants in the 1670s and 1680s.
The Bourbon family were also Kings of France and so the asiento was granted in 1702 to the French Guinea Company, for the importation of 48,000 African slaves over a decade.
The asiento became a conduit for British contraband and smugglers of all kinds, which undermined Spain's attempts to keep a protectionist trading system with its American colonies.
[27] Britain gave up its rights to the asiento after the war, in the Treaty of Madrid of 1750, as Spain was implementing several administrative and economic reforms.
Dutch private entrepreneurs were responsible for almost half of the total investment in slave trade against a smaller share held by the WIC.
In 1674, the WIC made Curaçao a free port, giving it a key position in the international networks, especially the slave trade.
Britain was permitted to open offices in Buenos Aires, Caracas, Cartagena, Havana, Panama, Portobello and Vera Cruz.
An extra-legal clause was added; one ship of no more than 500 tons could be sent to one of these places each year (the Navío de Permiso) with general trade goods.
At the end of the contract the Assentistas were permitted three years to remove their effects from the Indies, adjust their accounts and ‘‘make up a balance of the whole”.
The company trans-shipped 1,230 slaves from Jamaica to America in the first year, plus any that might have been added (against standing instructions) by the ship's captains on their own behalf.
[108] In 1714 the government announced that a quarter of profits would be reserved for Queen Anne and a further 7.5% for a financial advisor, Manuel Manasses Gilligan, an English colonist, who operated from the (neutral) Danish West Indies.
While this effectively diminished the profitability of the Asiento, the Spanish enhanced monitoring activity succeeded in detecting an increasing amount of smuggling (Bernal, 2001).
As the French previously discovered, high costs meant the real profits from the slave trade asiento were in smuggling contraband goods, which evaded import duties and deprived the authorities of much-needed revenue.
[115] The Spanish then proceeded to seek recompense for clandestine trade carried on by the SSC and others under the veil of the supply of Negroes and the annual ship.
The matter of the asiento was not even mentioned in the treaty, as it had lessened in importance to both nations, although both parties had agreed to resolve outstanding concerns at a "proper time and place".
[117] The issue was finally settled in 1750 when Britain agreed to renounce its claim to the asiento in exchange for a payment of £100,000 and British trade with Spanish America under favourable conditions.
These figures may change as authors of "Atlantic History and the Slave Trade to Spanish America" suggest half of them went to Brazil and a quarter to the Caribbean.
[129] The Spanish privateer and merchant Amaro Pargo (1678-1747) managed to transport slaves to the Caribbean, although, it is estimated, to a lesser extent than other captains and figures of the time dedicated to this activity.
[130] In 1710, the privateer was involved in a complaint by the priest Alonso García Ximénez, who accused him of freeing an African slave named Sebastián, who was transported to Venezuela on one of Amaro's ships.
The aforementioned Alonso García granted a power of attorney on July 18, 1715 to Teodoro Garcés de Salazar so that he could demand his return in Caracas.
