Asiento -- Britain's Slave Trade Monopoly
The Asiento de Negros, the contract granting the right to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish colonies in the Americas, was awarded to Britain at the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) after the War of Spanish Succession. It gave the South Sea Company (and by extension Britain) a 30-year monopoly to supply 4,800 enslaved Africans per year to Spanish colonies, plus a 10% royal cut. The Asiento transformed the slave trade from a Spanish monopoly into a British commercial enterprise and directly spurred the explosion of British slaving voyages from Bristol, Liverpool, and London. The South Sea Company's corrupt management of the Asiento contributed to the South Sea Bubble (1720). Britain's central role in the transatlantic slave trade from 1713 onward, eventually accounting for 40% of all slaving voyages, makes the Asiento one of the most consequential commercial contracts in history.
- Year: 1713 CE
- Category: Political
