THE SLAVE-TRADE IN THE SPANISH COLONIES OF AMERICA: THE ASSIENTO1

INTRODUCTION:

66

THE PACT COLONIAL AND THE ASSIENTO

President Monroe in his famous message to Congress, December 2, 1823, aimed both at the attempts at colonization which Europe might be led to make upon American soil, and the efforts which Spain might make to place its emancipated colonies again under her yoke. Europe saw with displeasure that the watch-word "America for the Americans," by which phrase they briefly and incompletely condensed the purport of the message, had a double significance, political above all for the United States, but one almost exclusively economic for the countries of Latin-America, which adopted it with enthusiasm.

The policy of Spain with regard to her colonies, although it no longer, since Charles III, sanctioned the system of ruthless exploitation which had been in force during two centuries, was incapable of adapting itself to the modern necessities of the life of nations. The colonies had been ruined by a régime of exaggerated exclusivism and of unbounded deception, the latter continuing when they tried to abandon the former. It would be difficult in our day to imagine what the Spanish colonial system was in its beginning. Claiming by right of conquest the possession of the New World which they had discovered, and which Columbus had given them without knowing it, the Spaniards were the first to invent the absurd system known by the name of "pact colonial" or of reciprocal exclusiveness. The "pact colonial" consisted in its essence of the following: all the products of the colonies must be carried to the mother-country, upon Peninsula vessels, and bought by merchants from the Peninsula, who were invested with a second monopoly which was the counterpart of the first; to provide the colonies with all manufactured products

1 This article was translated from the French of Professor Scelle by Mrs. Edna K. Hoyt, of the Department of State, Washington, D. C.

which might be necessary to them. The results were fatal; the products of the colonies were bought excessively cheap, as they were in superabundance and had but a single market; on the other hand, the manufactured products of the mother-country reached exorbitant prices, being more insufficient to the demand as the colonies became more extended and more populous.

Lastly, the colonists, deprived of a merchant marine and condemned not to engage in manufactures, vegetated in a state of civilization as stagnant as it was precarious. When they wished to react, it was too late, they did not know how to go about it, and besides, one can not with impunity condemn human societies to ignore progress without lessening the social value of the individuals.

The disastrous effects of this system were felt more in the Spanish colonies than anywhere else, because it was a whole world which Spain proposed to place under this withering régime, and because, by the decay of her industries, the mother-country was less able than any other to satisfy the needs of her colonists and subjects beyond the seas. The results, therefore, of this lamentable policy were still felt at the period of the emancipation of the countries of Latin-America, of which they were one of the hidden but certain causes. One might wonder even how the New World could live under a régime so contrary to the nature of things, if one did not remember that illicit trade, or as they termed it then, colonial interloping," was raised there to the dignity of an institution. The colonies established in the Antilles by England, France, Holland, Denmark, Brazil itself in the hands of the Portuguese, and by the colony of the Sacrement, served as warehouses for the merchandise of Europe. The Spanish officials, better posted with regard to the needs of the colonists than the Government of Madrid, closed their eyes to the clandestine traffic, which besides was most lucrative to them, for when they did not carry it on themselves, they charged dearly for their toleration. That is the way that America was able to live.

One of the most important factors of this illicit trade was the slave-trade, and the importance which the traffic in slaves took on on this head for maritime nations, rivals of Spain, came exclusively

from that. But how are we to account for the fact that Spain did not monopolize the slave traffic as the others, in what way explain why she left the monopoly of it, generally known under the name of Assiento, to such dangerous rivals? This is what we have undertaken to investigate. These studies have led us at the same time to inquire into the manner in which the American slave-trade was organized, and to fill a gap in history upon that point. Certain indications permit us to suppose that this kind of industry was invested at different periods with a considerable importance, not alone from an economic point of view, but from a political and diplomatic point of view as well. The maritime powers had sought to monopolize this branch of trade, especially when it was directed towards the Spanish colonies of America, and England had the exclusive exploitation of it granted to her by Philip V at the Congress of Utrecht. The famous clause of the Anglo-Spanish treaty of 1713, the article of "L'Assiento," was not an isolated fact; it was scarcely credible that the sole desire of securing to themselves a few advantages was the reason for the care which the English took to monopolize that branch of commerce. It was interesting to know the antecedents of that Assiento and certain authors had investigated them. They knew that a great French company, the Company of Guinea, had obtained the monopoly at the accession of Philip V; that before it the Portuguese, the Genoese, and Germans had had it; but that was about the extent of the information which they had. This curiosity deserved to be better satisfied. But in the first place what is an Assiento, and what is the origin of the Assiento of the blacks?

Assiento is a term of Spanish public law which designates every contract made for the purpose of public utility, for the administration of a public service, between the Spanish Government and private individuals. The administration of a tax, an enterprise of colonization, of public works, of recruiting the militia, of providing

2 Some rather complicated but very fruitful researches have led us to the principal depositories of archives of France, England, Spain, and Portugal. We have recorded the results in a work entitled: La traite négrière aux Indes de Castille (The slave-trade in the Indies of Castile), three volumes, two of which have been published, by Larose et Tenin, Paris, 1905.

manual labor or materials was done by Assiento. When it was a question of realizing upon the vast territories with which Columbus had endowed Castile, new types of Assiento made their appearance: they had Assientos for colonization and for discoveries by which an "adelantade," an adventurer, undertook to explore, to clear up, to people a specified region. They had more restricted Assientos for the transportation of objects necessary to the new colonists, etc.; lastly, they had Assientos for providing manual labor.

The latter early made their appearance, for very soon the aborigines and the Spanish colonists were found to be inadequate for the improvement of the new lands. The aborigines were an inactive, lazy race, showing so great sluggishness that they preferred death to work. The cruelties and the exploitations of the still merciless conquerors were such that they may be accused, without too much exaggeration, of having perpetrated the slaughter of an entire race. The methods of "apportionment" and of "distribution" (repartimientos et encomiendas) established a system of slavery of incredible inhumanity which decimated the aboriginal populations. As to the European colonists, they were unaccustomed to work, unfitted to endure the climate; besides the colonist is not a tiller of the soil, he is a manufacturer, a merchant, an official, he does not improve the land.

Moreover, the colonizing was badly done; the Antilles, more and better stocked, were abandoned to the advantage of the continent, beginning especially with the period when gold mines were discovered. But for these mines particularly laborers were needed; the gangs of unfortunate natives worked slowly and produced little; one negro was worth four of them, it was said, and the climate was so habitually healthful for the negroes" that it seemed made for them as much as for the orange trees," says Herrera,3 the official chronicler of the Spanish monarchy. The negroes became especially necessary to the plantations when sugar-cane was introduced and people understood that the production of precious metals would not be inexhaustible.

It was not difficult in the beginning to procure them; there was a

a Ibid., II, 3, 14.

sufficiently large number in Spain itself and in Portugal: slavery had never completely ceased to exist in Europe since the Roman era, and had at least persisted in the far East and far West of the continent, in Turkey and in the Iberian peninsula. The Mediterranean relations there, the proximity of the Barbary Regencies, the wars sustained against them by the Catholic Kings, had multiplied the Moorish slaves; then, the discoveries of the Portuguese, the expeditions of Béthencourt to the Canaries, those of Prince Henry the Navigator along the African coasts, the founding of the slave trading company of Loango in 1460, had supplied Azenegues and Barbary slaves. There were also white slaves, Jews, women coming from Turkey and from Asia Minor. Thus the first slave expeditions were made directly from the mother-country, but they soon became wholly inadequate. As the shadow of the flag of Castille was extended, the need for manual labor increased, and it soon became necessary to think of going to Africa itself to seek the slaves, who had become indispensable. Then the problem of the organization of the slave-trade presented itself.

This problem was complex only by reason of the curious organization of Spanish colonial commerce. Not only were foreigners excluded from it, but, of all the kingdoms over which the Hapsbourgs reigned, Castille was, at first, the only one admitted to undertake it, because Castille alone had directed and supported the expeditions of the High Admiral of Spain. In order the better to secure the monopoly, this commerce had no other point of departure, no other point of arrival, but Seville, to which afterwards Cadiz and the small ports of the Guadalquiver were added. It was wholly in the hands of the "Consulado," the organ of the society of merchants, and of the "Contratacion," the central administrative, financial and jurisdictional organ, in which were concentrated the products allotted to the royal treasury, where licenses for navigation were delivered, where the complicated and rigorous regulations of the "Course of

4 Tribunal of commerce appointed to try and decide cases which concern navigation and trade.

5 A house or place where agreements and contracts are made for the promotion of trade and commerce.