Slave Trade Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The colloquium approaches the study of asientos de negros - monopolistic contracts between the Crown and entrepreneurs for the purpose of bringing slaves into the Indies – broadly and from different analytical perspectives. The asientos de negros contracts allowed the Spanish Monarchy to concentrate a series of useful services in the hands of solvent businessmen for the whole of its territories. It did so, firstly, to satisfy the constant demand for slave labor in the Indies. Slave labour was needed on plantations, in mines, domestic service, construction, and in fact for an endless number of economic purposes. The asientos also facilitated the trade in slaves as a luxury product exchanged to access the most valuable American items: silver, salt, tobacco, cocoa, indigo, and grana, and other commodities. The asentistas were the tip of the iceberg in the development of vast mercantile networks that connected markets, ports and institutions through variegated client networks of reciprocal collaboration that extended across the Atlantic. As a result, the asientos de esclavos were much more than the subcontracting of a specific service in exchange for certain tax revenues. The asentistas concentrated and channeled numerous interests and services in their hands: transport, loans, shipbuilding, supplies and military protection, among others. These services involved a plethora of agents of all provenances, conditions and professions. Thus, the "Asiento" offered the asentistas a way to insert themselves into extensive transnational networks that were Atlantic or even global in scope, but had strong local roots. This method of inserting themselves and operating on the local level of urban, port, mercantile, diplomatic and financial networks gave them a privileged role in terms of access and circulation of information as well as connecting different urban contexts the slave trade linked to other interests.
Despite their relevance for operating the Spanish Monarchy at the local and international level, the "asientos de negros" have not been the subject of many global studies. They are almost always considered a secondary matter in works about the Atlantic commercial system, the development of the Iberian empires, or the participation of foreigners in the Spanish commercial system.
In the current historiography, though, works on imperial transnational networks and the study of slavery have gained remarkable momentum. The issues they consider are linked to some of the central axes of our project REXPUBLICA, specifically those relating to the role of urban polynuclear networks in the operation of a polycentric imperial structure of urban republics such as the Hispanic monarchy. Indeed, the urban centers acted as the nodes around which a complex structure of overlapping networks of different nature was built, capable of operating within the framework of a great variety of diverse jurisdictional, fiscal and institutional spaces. These were networks on the move and specialized in the provision of a varied range of services, in permanent competition and collaboration, attracted by the promotional possibilities their agents not only had to manage, but also integrate into the heart of a variety of local spaces jealously defending their autonomy and privileges.
Approaching the complex system of agents, networks, corporations and institutions associated with the slave trade from a variety of angles will allow us to question Philip Curtin's description of mercantile diasporas operating on a global scale and between different cultural spaces as socially integrated communities and closed groups characterized by a high level of social and cultural cohesion. Instead, following Francesca Trivellato, we are more inclined to emphasize the role of intercultural cooperation and, especially, of the cosmopolitan communitarianism that characterized this kind of mercantile networks with a strong transnational component. However, we will be interested in looking not only at the high degree of cosmopolitanism evident in these transnational agents, but also the processes by which they were rooted in or excluded from the cities of the monarchy. We will observe how these networks were settled within the mercantile frameworks of the different cities and their hinterlands, and how they were configured for collaboration and competition with other networks, companies or agents at the same time. This will enable us to trace the loyalties, identities, friendships and, of course, clientele that gave cohesion and shape to these networks through trust and mutual interest. Moreover, studying these networks across long periods of time will also allow us to see how these networks adapted to different contexts both within the Spanish imperial system and outside, and highlight their capacity for resistance and adaptability to changing circumstances.
We suggest that the most pertinent way to approach the complexity associated with the processes of interconnection and with the mutual influences operated within an imperial structure of global dimensions is the analysis of the leading role of the great variety of agents that circulated within it, examining their multiple interactions as well as the strategies and forms of rationality that guided their actions. It is precisely these interactions between the local and the global and the dynamics that they were able to generate in decision making or in the channeling of information that make us rather focus on a jeux d’échelles capable of offering a more complex and attentive approach to a greater variety of documentary sources.
Based on these postulates, the colloquium will offer a multi-angled vision of the "Asiento" system, addressing it as a space of innovation, adaptation and creation of formal and informal institutions linked to the development of a fragmented but interconnected Atlantic space in which the Hispanic Monarchy was a fundamental political aggregate. The "Asiento" was a permanent subject of European diplomacy and was articulated by transnational mercantile networks made up of private traders whose political, social, cultural or religious affiliations were extremely varied. In addition, the slave trade allowed to connect distant territories under different jurisdictions and political entities, constituting a fundamental element in the international scene and an extremely attractive object of study.