Asiento

The Asiento was the permission given by the Spanish government to other countries to sell slaves to the Spanish colonies, between the years 1543 and 1834.

In British history, it usually refers to the contract between Spain and Great Britain created in 1713 that dealt with the supply of African slaves for the Spanish territories in the Americas. The British government passed its rights to the South Sea Company.

The general meaning of asiento (from the Spanish verb sentar, to sit, and this from Latin sedere) in Spanish is "consent" or "settlement, establishment". In a commercial context it means "contract, trading agreement." In the words of Georges Scelle, it is "a term in Spanish public law which designates every contract made for the purpose of public utility…between the Spanish government and private individuals."

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."

Through an asiento, a trade relationship was established whereby a set of traders was given a monopoly over that route and/or product. In this case, it refers specifically to a monopoly over the trade of slaves between Africa and the Americas. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, this asiento existed between the early 16th and mid-18th century.

Initially, Portugal dominated the slave trade. Before the onset of the official asiento in 1595, the Spanish fiscal authorities gave individual asientoes to merchants, primarily from Portugal, to bring slaves to the Americas. For the 1560s most of these slaves were obtained in the Upper Guinea regions, especially in the Sierra Leone region where there were many wars associated with the Mande invasions.

Following the establishment of the Portuguese colony of Angola in 1575, and the gradual replacement of São Tomé by Brazil as the primary producers 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.

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Wikipedia