The () was a monopoly contract between the Spanish Crown and various merchants for the right to provide enslaved Africans to colonies in the Spanish Americas. 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 Asiento did not concern French or British Caribbean, or Brazil, but only Spanish America.
The 1479 Treaty of Alcáçovas divided the Atlantic Ocean and other parts of the globe into two zones of influence, Spanish and Portuguese. The Spanish acquired the west side, covering South America and the West Indies, whilst the Portuguese obtained the east side, covering the west coast of Africa – and also the Indian Ocean beyond. The Spanish relied on enslaved African labourers to support their American colonial project, but now lacked any trading or territorial foothold in West Africa, the principal source of slave labour.Schneider, Elena, The Occupation of Havana, University of North Carolina Press, 1977, p.23 The Spanish relied on Portuguese slave traders to fill their requirements. The contract was usually obtained by foreign merchant banks that cooperated with local or foreign traders, that specialized in shipping. Different organisations and individuals would bid for the right to hold the .
The original impetus to import enslaved Africans was to relieve the indigenous inhabitants of the colonies from the labour demands of Spanish colonists.Haring, Clarence. The Spanish Empire in America, New York: Oxford University Press 1947, p. 219. The enslavement of Amerindians had been halted by the influence of Dominicans such as Bartolomé de las Casas. Spain gave individual to Portuguese merchants to bring African slaves to South America.Israel, J. (2002). Diasporas within the Diaspora. Jews, Crypto-Jews and the World Maritime Empires (1510–1740).
After the Peace of Münster, in 1648, Dutch merchants became involved in the Asiento de Negros. In 1713, the British were awarded the right to the asiento in the Treaty of Utrecht, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession. The British government passed its rights to the South Sea Company.Haring, The Spanish Empire in America, p. 220. The British ended with the 1750 Treaty of Madrid between Great Britain and Spain after the War of Jenkins' Ear, known appropriately by the Spanish as the Guerra del Asiento ("War of the Asiento").
An , in the Spanish language, is a short-term loan or debt contract, of about one to four years, signed between the Spanish crown and a banker or a small group of bankers () against future crown revenues,The strategy of Philip II against the Cortes in the 1575 crisis and the domestic credit market freeze Carlos Álvarez-Nogal and Christophe Chamley The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659: The Logistics of ...by Geoffrey Parker, p. 125 often included after peace treaties were signed. An covered one or a combination of three specific transactions: an unsecured short-term loan, a transfer of payment, and a currency exchange contract.J Conklin (1998) The Theory of Sovereign Debt and Spain under Philip II Between the early 16th and the mid-18th century, were used by the Spanish treasurer to adjust short-term imbalances between revenues and expenditures. The sovereign promised to repay the principal of the loan plus high interest (12%). 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.A Nation upon the Ocean Sea: Portugal's Atlantic Diaspora and the Crisis of ... by Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, pp. 112–113 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. In this way a set of merchants received the right to ship tobacco, salt, sugar and cacao on a trade route from the Spanish West Indies, some times accompanied by licences to export bullion from Spanish Main or Cádiz.The Cambridge Economic History of Europe: From the Decline of the Roman empire by Sir John Harold Clapham, Eileen Edna Power, p. 372 In particular, the would result in great impact for the economy of Spanish American colonies, because the treaty secured or would secure fixed revenues for the crown and the supply of the region with certain commodities, whereas the contracting party bore the risk of the trade.The Asiento de Negros and International Law by Andrea Weindl. In: Journal of the History of International Law. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/157180508X359846 A new asiento was the safest means to get their money back and cash their arrears.Carlos Álvarez Nogal (2002) THE ABILITY OF AN ABSOLUTE KING TO BORROW DURING THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. SPAIN DURING THE HABSBURG DYNASTY [sic], p. 7, 30
History of the
Background in the Spanish Americas The general meaning of (from the Spanish verb , to sit, which was derived from the Latin ) in Spanish is "consent" or "settlement, establishment". In a commercial context, it means "contract, trading agreement". In the words of Georges Scelle, it was "a term in Spanish public law which designates every contract made for the purpose of public utility...between the Spanish government and private individuals."Postma, Johannes, The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1815 (Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 29.
The Asiento system was established following Spanish settlement in the Caribbean when the indigenous population was undergoing demographic collapse and the Spanish needed another source of labour. Initially, a few Christian Africans born in Iberia were transported to the Caribbean. But as the indigenous demographic collapse was ongoing and opponents of the Spanish exploitation of indigenous labour grew, including that of Bartolomé de Las Casas (although rescinding his views later), the young Habsburg king Charles I of Spain allowed for the direct importation of slaves from Africa (bozales) to the Caribbean. 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. Gouvenot promptly sold his licence to the treasurer of the and three subcontractors, Genoese merchants in Andalusia, for 25,000 ducats.Grete Klingenstein, Heinrich Lutz, Gerald Stourzh, EUROPÄISIERUNG DER ERDE? Studien zur Einwirkung Europas auf die außereuropäische Welt 1980, p. 90.Haring, The Spanish Empire in America, p. 219. The Casa de Contratación in Seville controlled both trade and immigration to the New World, excluding Jews, conversos, Muslims, and foreigners. African slaves were considered merchandise, and their imports were regulated by the crown.Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery, p. 135. The Spanish crown collected a duty on each "pieza", and not on each individual slave delivered.The Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, Volume 5 by Oxford University Press Spain had neither direct access to the African sources of slaves nor the ability to transport them, so the asiento system was a way to ensure a legal supply of Africans to the New World, which brought revenue to the Spanish crown.Shelly, Cara. "Asiento" in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, vol. 1, p. 218. New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons 1996, p. 218.
Portuguese monopoly For the Spanish crown, the asiento was a source of profit. Haring says, "The asiento remained the settled policy of the Spanish government for controlling and profiting from the slave trade." In Habsburg Spain, asientos were a basic method of financing state expenditures: "Borrowing took two forms – long-term debt in the form of perpetual bonds (juros), and short-term loan contracts provided by bankers (asientos). Many asientos were eventually converted or refinanced through juros."Mauricio Drelichman and Hans-Joachim Voth, "Lending to the Borrower from Hell: Debt and Default in the Age of Phillip II, 1566–1598", p. 6.
Initially, since Portugal had unimpeded rights in West Africa via its 1494 treaty, it dominated the European slave trade of Africans. Before the onset of the official asiento in 1595, when the Spanish monarch also ruled Portugal in the Iberian Union (1580–1640), the Spanish fiscal authorities gave individual asientos to merchants, primarily from Portugal, to bring slaves to the Americas. For the 1560s most of these slaves were obtained in the Upper Guinea area, especially in the Sierra Leone region where there were many wars associated with the Mandé invasions.
Following the establishment of the Portuguese colony of Angola in 1575, and the gradual replacement of São Tomé by Brazil as the primary producer of sugar, Angolan interests came to dominate the trade, and it was Portuguese financiers and merchants who obtained the larger-scale, comprehensive asiento that was established in 1595 during the period of the Iberian Union. The asiento was extended to the importation of African slaves to Brazil, with those holding asientos for the Brazilian slave trade often also trading slaves in Spanish America. Spanish America was a major market for African slaves, including many of whom exceeded the quota of the asiento license and were illegally sold. From the period between 1595 and 1622, approximately half of all imported slaves were destined for Mexico.The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History by James A. Rawley, Stephen D. Behrendt, p. 62-63 Most smuggled slaves were not brought by freelance traders.Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery, p. 181.
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. Many of these governors also held the contract of Angola as well as the asiento, thus insuring their interests. Shipping registers from Vera Cruz and Cartagena show that as many as 85% of the slaves arriving in Spanish ports were from Angola, brought by Portuguese ships. In 1637 the Dutch West India Company employed Portuguese merchants in the trade.Postma, Johannes, The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1815(Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 21. 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.
Dutch, French and British competition