Asiento de Negros

Common card · No. 359796

The Asiento de Negros (lit. 'settlement of blacks') 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...

Read on Wikipedia · Image 1713 Treaty between Britain and Spain, Public domain