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Acknowledgements
This research was possible thanks to support from the Department of History, the Program of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Institute for Comparative and International Studies, and the Laney Graduate School all at Emory University. Research trip to Montevideo in 2008 was supported by a Mellon Foundation Fellowship (Council on Library and Information Resources). I thank David Eltis for his advice, Susan Socolow for her generosity on sources and for her comments, Arturo Bentancur, Tiago Gil, and Fabrício Prado for guiding my research in Seville, and Ana Frega for sharing her knowledge of Montevideo. I am grateful to Alfonso Quiroz and the anonymous readers of CLAR for their invaluable comments and suggestions. Previous versions of this article were presented in the 32nd Meeting of the Social Science History Association (2007), and the Virginia-Carolina-Georgia Seminar on Colonial Latin American History (2008). I thank participants at these meetings for their comments.
Notes
1. The Crown established taxation, shipping, and commercial policies to encourage Spanish engagement in the slave trade. Slaves could be imported duty free and, from 1793 on, foreign ships bought by Spanish subjects for slave trading purposes were exempted from paying taxes. In addition, products exported from Spanish dominions to buy slaves in Africa were to be free of export duties if the captain and at least half of the crew were Spanish. In other situations, Spanish and foreigners alike paid a six percent export tax on products intended as payment for slaves. In 1794, given the initial difficulty of Spanish traders in Africa, the Crown authorized slave vessels to embark machinery and tools for sugar mills on their return voyage if they could not buy slaves, and these products too were tax-exempt. Other merchandise was specifically prohibited as a return cargo for such ships. However, local authorities allowed slave traders to introduce certain goods as returning cargo in spite of the Crown's reiterated prohibition against this illegal trade in 1799 (Studer 1958, 251). The Crown authorized Spanish ships between three hundred and five hundred tons to introduce slaves in 1791, while foreign ships only below three hundred tons were allowed. In 1792, the Crown first extended the period that foreign slave vessels could stay in port for eight days, and then for forty days (King Citation1942, 52–56; Murray Citation1980, 12–14). These measures reflected the imperial interest in developing the slave trade, and expanding colonial agricultural production and commerce.
2. The Spanish Crown issued the ‘Real Cedula de su Magestad sobre la educación, trato y ocupaciones de los esclavos en todos sus dominios de Indias, é Islas Filipinas’ on 31 May 1789. This Real Cédula foresaw the scenario of increasing numbers of slaves living in the colonies following the opening of the slave trade in 1789. Biblioteca de la Real Academia de Historia (BRAH), Madrid, Colección Mata Linares, vol. 114, f. 301. On the ideology linking economic benefits for the Río de la Plata and Spain, the slave trade and slavery, see the reports of Tomás A. Romero, the Cabildo of Buenos Aires, and the Gremio de Hacendados in 1794–1796. BRAH, Colección Mata Linares, vol. 12, ff. 160, 178 and 184. On the plans to expand slavery in Venezuela, see BRAH, Colección Manuscritos sobre América, Plan de comercio para la provincia de Caracas, puntos del Ayuntamiento y Consulado, 1799, vol. 4, ff. 344–45. On the Spanish admiration of plantation agriculture in Saint Domingue, and its application to Cuba see: Memorias de la Colonia Francesa de Santo Domingo, con algunas reflexiones relativas a la Isla de Cuba, por un viagero Español [printed in Madrid, 1787] BRAH. On Cuba, see the Discurso sobre la agricultura de La Habana y medios de fomentarla (1792) by Francisco de Arango y Parreño (Pichardo Citation1977, 162–216).
3. In 1767 the Crown allowed a line of mail vessels from A Coruña (Galicia) to Montevideo. Other royal ordinances allowed trade with the Portuguese in the early 1780s during wartime (Bentancur 1998, 289).
4. On the Spanish-Portuguese commercial networks see Prado (2009).
5. Archivo General de la Nación, Argentina (hereafter AGN-A), XIII, 15-8-2, 3v, and IX, 2-3-5.
6. Archivo General de Indias (hereafter AGI), Sección Buenos Aires, 141 and 449; AGN-A, XIII, 15-7-4, 15-8-11, 15-9-2, 15-9-5, IX, 2-3-4, 2-3-5, 14-4-4, 14-4-6.
7. AGN-A, IX, 36-6-4, ‘Expediente sobre la deuda que tiene Dn Domingo Belgrano Pérez con la Real Aduana de Montevideo …’ [Montevideo, 1783].
8. Juan C. Garavaglia describes the functioning of a trading operation during wartime in 1779–1783. He points to merchants of Buenos Aires who sent metallic to Cádiz via Lisbon. Portuguese ships coming to Montevideo took silver from Buenos Aires’ merchants. The merchants in Montevideo, who had received this silver, placed part of this specie in trading networks outside of the legal Spanish commercial circuits (Garavaglia Citation1976).
9. On the Portuguese need of silver for trading in China see Da Costa e Silva (Citation2006, 20).
10. The French brought 3,000 slaves to the Río de la Plata, and the English disembarked other 14,000. The contracts of Peninsular Spanish Tomás Navarro, Ramon Palacio, and Francisco de Mendieta brought 2,800 slaves from Africa in mid-eighteenth century. It is difficult to estimate the slaves brought in by the Portuguese of Colônia, but I believe they sent to Río de la Plata a number of slaves similar to the combined French, English, and Spanish contracts from 1680 to 1777. Only in 1748–1749, the Portuguese disembarked 1,654 slaves in Colônia. The Spanish confiscated more than one thousand slaves as contraband from Colônia in 1760–1775 (Prado 2009, 74–76).
11. Spaniards could not control Amerindian nomadic societies, which threatened the Spanish even during the late colonial period. However, Amerindians were not removed from colonial Montevideo and Buenos Aires. These cities depended on rented Amerindian labor particularly for public works (Mandrini Citation2006, 21–42; Neumann Citation1996).
12. For slave labor and the economy of the colonial Banda Oriental see Sala, de la Torre, and Rodríguez (Citation1968). For slavery in rural mid-nineteenth century Uruguay, see Borucki, Chagas, and Stalla (Citation2004).
13. See Saguier (Citation1995); Julio Djenderedjian (Citation2003) analyzes a large cattle ranch in Entre Ríos, north from Buenos Aires and west from Montevideo, where 61 slaves worked by the 1800s. Fifty-six slaves were born in that ranch from 1785 to 1817, but not a single one survived childhood.
14. AGN-A, IX, 33-6-1, ‘Dn Martin de Sarratea apoderado de la Real Compañía de Filipinas …’ [1789].
15. This figure comes from data on slave purchases produced by some slave traders. AGN-A, IX, 18-8-11.
16. The Portuguese joined the British during the first six months of 1801, which triggered a Portuguese invasion of the north of what is today Uruguay (Bentancur 1998, 303).
17. The majority of slave arrivals with non-declared origin came in 1800–1806, at the zenith of the direct African trade. Probably these voyages came mainly from Africa.
18. AGN-A, IX, 18-8-11, Papers of Tomás A. Romero.
19. See the entries for slave voyages in AGN-A, IX, 14-4-4 and 14-4-5, Tomas de Razón, 1782.
20. Fragoso and Gouvêa note a Portuguese scheme to sell slaves in the Índias da Castela (Spanish America) in 1799 (Fragoso and Gouvêa 2006, 35).
21. Apart from this coastal slave trade, continuous inland slave traffic existed from the southernmost Brazilian province (present-day Rio Grande do Sul) to the Río de la Plata. In the eighteenth century, Spanish garrisons frequently captured petty traders who tried to smuggle slaves, tobacco, and European products through the countryside of present-day Uruguay. From the reports of these frontier garrisons, we estimate that between 100 and 200 slaves were introduced yearly from Rio Grande do Sul between 1777 and 1812. This inland traffic would increase from five to ten percent (3,500–7,000) the total slave trade to the viceregal Río de la Plata. For other estimates of this inland slave trade see Bauss (Citation1983).
22. On the role of Rio de Janeiro in the Portuguese empire see Fragoso and Florentino (Citation2001). On the significance of the merchants of Rio de Janeiro in the imperial system see Fragoso (Citation1998). On the slave trade to Rio de Janeiro see Florentino (Citation1997). On the debates on Brazilian slavery see Schwartz (Citation1996).
23. In 1781–1783, nearly 10,000 slaves arrived in Rio de Janeiro, out of whom 3,000 were shipped to the Río de la Plata. In 1792–1806, approximately 168,000 slaves arrived in South-Eastern Brazil (Rio de Janeiro and neighboring minor ports), and 15,000 were shipped to the Río de la Plata. In these same years another 4,300 slaves arrived in the Río de la Plata from Brazil, but we lack data on their port of origin. Half of them surely departed from Rio de Janeiro. On slave arrivals to Rio de Janeiro see Behrendt, Eltis, Florentino, and Richardson.
24. Rio de Janeiro supplied three quarters of all slaves entering Rio Grande de Sul, but only half of the slaves entering the Río de la Plata via Brazil.
25. See also Bergad (Citation2007) on this issue on comparative view.
26. Note that there was no recorded slave arrival to the Río de la Plata in 1787, 1790 and 1791. If we take those years out of the figures, the average increases to 2,800 slaves arriving per year.
27. On the commercial circuits of silver from the Río de la Plata to Brazil, see Gelman (1996).
28. The slave trade from Rio de Janeiro to Rio Grande do Sul illustrates the profits of the slave traders of Rio de Janeiro in the Río de la Plata. Fragoso and Florentino point out that the merchants of Rio de Janeiro obtained a hundred percent return of sales in Rio Grande (Fragoso and Florentino Citation2001, 167–70).
29. AGN-A, IX, 4-7-5, ‘Instancia promovida por varios individuos del comercio de esta capital sobre remisión a España por la vía de Brasil los frutos acopiados de sus negociaciones …’ [1799].
30. Romero owned—or he was the consignee of—entire slave vessels, while Pedro Duval commonly was the co-owner or co-consignee of slave ventures. Thus, Duval had a less important participation in the trade than Romero even though he was involved in similar number of slave ventures than Romero.
31. Archivo General de la Nacion, Uruguay, Escribanía de Gobierno y Hacienda, Caja 41, Exp.122.
32. For a new assessment of the wide-ranging activities of the United States-based slave traders see Eltis (Citation2008).