The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History, Revised Edition

3. Spain and the Slave Trade

BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page 45 / / The Transatlantic Slave Trade / James A. Rawley 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [First Page] [45], (1) Lines: 0 to 16 ——— * 18.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page * PgEnds: Eject [45], (1) 3. spain and the slave trade The commerce in Africans for the Spanish American market held distinctive characteristics. At the beginning of the trade Spain owned nearly all the New World, including a virtual monopoly of tropical America. At the same time, thanks to the papal line of demarcation of 1494, she held no territory in West Africa, the source of labor. These circumstances throughout most of her slaving history made her dependent upon flags having access to Africa, or upon intraCaribbean trade. Although a number of European nations seized territory in the Spanish New World and occupied territory in nominally Portuguese Africa, Spain did not in turn establish trading bases in Africa. Albeit the assertion by one authority that the acquisition in 1778 of Fernando Po and Annabon off West Africa provided an important source, the statement cannot be sustained. An expedition to subdue inhabitants failed, and Spain abandoned the attempt to secure slaves from these islands.1 Beyond these geographical handicaps, Spain long languished under perhaps the most restrictive commercial system in western Europe. Marked not only by tight governmental control but also pervasive corruption, the system favored bullion not tropical produce and royal revenues not slave labor needs. Spaniards did not invest substantial quantities of capital in New World enterprises,did not form commercial companies to exploit overseas trade in the manner of other countries, and did not develop an adequate commercial fleet. Moreover, Spain’s need for American sugar was less acute than that of other nations, because she grew sugar in southern Spain and in the Canary Islands. The accession in 1759 of the “enlightened despot” Charles III brought encouragement of trade and industry and the liberalizing of slave trade policy. With an empire too big to defend, a relatively sparse colonial population, undeveloped and underdeveloped tropical holdings, and a rigid commercial regulation that left Spanish colonists hungry for wares and slaves, Spain became the victim of international rivalries. The development of empire by European BOB — University of Nebraska Press / Page 46 / / The Transatlantic Slave Trade / James A. Rawley 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 [46], (2) Lines: 16 to 25 ——— 0.0pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [46], (2) nations was often at the expense of the Spanish territorial monopoly of the New World, Spanish commerce, and the trade in slaves to Spanish America. Spain, in an overview of three and a half centuries of involvement in the Atlantic slave trade, tried to supply slaves to her colonists through three economic systems. In the sixteenth century Spain employed a licensing system that sought to produce income for the crown and to prevent smuggling. Holders of licenses must purchase their slaves from the Portuguese and clear their ships from Seville. The system was not a success in furnishing slaves to Spanish buyers . Union with Portugal late in the century opened the opportunity to make contracts with Portuguese. This is the beginning of the famous series of asientos, or agreements by which the favored contractor might ship slaves directly from Africa, in specified numbers and often designated places, in return for a handsome payment to the crown. At the start of the eighteenth century these coveted contracts became a prize in international diplomacy, but they did not produce an ample supply of slaves. The system was terminated in 1789,and Spain entered the third phase of policy by going over to free trade, the most successful of the three systems. In its chronological scope the Spanish trade was nearly coextensive with the Portuguese, lasting more than three centuries. To the year 1600 it was the largest in volume to the New World, coming to 75,000 slaves; that figure was slightly exceeded by the number of imports into the Portuguese island of São Tomé, and amounted to only one-half of the whole of the Old World’s imports, including the...