What was the slave asiento, and how did it pass to Britain?

The slave asiento goes to Britain

El asiento de negros pasa a Inglaterra

26 March 1713–1750. From the sixteenth century the Crown sold the asiento, a monopoly contract to supply enslaved Africans to its American colonies, to Portuguese, Genoese, Dutch…

Where: The Spanish Caribbean, The whole Spanish-speaking world, Río de la Plata, Spain, Cuba, Colombia, Argentina, Panama

What happened

From the sixteenth century the Crown sold the asiento, a monopoly contract to supply enslaved Africans to its American colonies, to Portuguese, Genoese, Dutch and French merchants in turn. At the end of the War of Succession it went to Britain: signed on 26 March 1713 and confirmed at Utrecht, it gave the South Sea Company the right to land 4,800 'piezas de indias' a year for thirty years at Cartagena, Portobelo, Veracruz, Havana and Buenos Aires. The company used it as cover for smuggling, Spain and Britain fought over it, and it was bought out in 1750. Across the colonial period Spanish America received a substantial share of the 12 to 18 million Africans carried across the Atlantic; Spain banned the trade only in 1817, and Cuba kept slavery until 1886.

Say it

El asiento era un contrato para vender personas esclavizadas en América.

The asiento was a contract to sell enslaved people in America.

Why it matters

The trade created the Afro-descendant populations of Cuba, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and the Río de la Plata, whose music, religion and words (from 'bongó' to 'mucama') are part of Spanish today.

Read about it

Connected

Sources

  1. El asiento de esclavos con Inglaterra (1713-1750) (Rafael Donoso Anes), Cuadernos Monográficos del IHCN, 52 — Armada Española, Ministerio de Defensa
  2. War of the Spanish Succession — World History Encyclopedia
  3. Transatlantic Slave Trade — World History Encyclopedia