Odious Commerce: Britain, Spain and the Abolition of the Cuban Slave Trade

437 Pages·1981·7.72 MB·English

by  David R. Murray

CAMBRIDGE LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES
GENERAL EDITOR
MALCOLM DEAS
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
WERNER BAER MARVIN BERNSTEIN
AL STEPAN BRYAN ROBERTS
37
ODIOUS COMMERCE
BRITAIN, SPAIN AND THE ABOLITION OF
THE CUBAN SLAVE TRADE

Odious commerce
Britain, Spain and the abolition of
the Cuban slave trade
DAVID R. MURRAY
Associate Professor, Department of History
University ofGuelph, Gnelph, Ontario
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE
LONDON NEW YORK NEW ROCHELLE
MELBOURNE SYDNEY
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
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© Cambridge University Press 1980
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1980
First paperback edition 2002
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 52122867 0 hardback
ISBN 0 52152469 5 paperback
TO ANN

CONTENTS
Preface IX
1 The 'opening' of a legal trade 1
2 Parliament versus Cortes 22
3 Legality and illegality 40
4 The treaty of 18 I 7 50
5 Enforcement and re-enforcement: the attempt to make
the slave trade prohibition effective 72
6 The treaty of 1835 92
7 An abolitionist era 114
8 The Turnbull affair 133
9 The Escalera conspiracy 159
10 The penal law of 1845 l8l
11 Free trade and annexationism 208
12 The failure of the penal law 241
13 A new class of slaves 271
14 The abolition of the Cuban slave trade 298
Abbreviations 327
Notes 328
Bibliography 400
Index 415
TABLES
1 African slaves imported through Havana, 1790-1821 18
2 African trade through Havana, 1803-16 20
3 Number of African slaves landed in the Havana area,
1822-29 8°
4 Nationality of Cuban slave trade vessels, 1834-40 103
5 Nationality of suspected slave trade vessels leaving Havana,
1834-40 104
6 British consul Tolme's estimate of slave landings in Cuba,
1830-38 111
7 Numbers of slaves imported into the Havana-Matanzas area,
1835-41, taken from the books of the Cuban slave traders 112
8 British imports of Cuban sugar, 1845-60 243
9 Havana commissioners' estimate of the number of slaves
imported into Cuba, 1840—67 244
PREFACE
Spain's colonial empire saw the beginning and the end of the trans-
atlantic slave trade. In one of the ironies of history, the abolition of
the commerce in African slaves preceded the loss of Spain's last
American possessions, reversing the process begun nearly four hund-
red years before when Spain's conquest of the Indies led to the begin-
ning of the Atlantic slave trade. Even before the majority of Spain's
American colonies received their political independence in the period
1810—25, me question of the African slave trade in Spain's overseas
dominions involved mainly the plantation colonies, and particularly
Cuba. Of Spain's once vast American empire only Cuba and Puerto
Rico remained after 1825. Essentially then, the story of the abolition
of the slave trade within the Spanish colonial empire is the story of
the abolition of the slave trade to Cuba.
Cuba was an ideal colony for Spain as long as she could hold it.
As the wealth of her largest plantation colony grew, Spain was able to
cover the cost of Cuba's administration and the expenses of Spanish
military forces stationed there from Cuban revenues. Throughout
the nineteenth century Cuba was a very important market for Spanish
exports and the carrying trade between Spain and Cuba fostered
the growth of a Spanish merchant marine. But Cuba's importance to
Spain was much more than that of a self-supporting colony and
trading partner for the metropolis. Cuba's revenue was an invaluable
source of funds for a beleaguered Spanish government during the
Carlist civil wars of the 1830s and the administrative posts in the
island were useful stepping stones for ambitious peninsular military
officers. The possession of Cuba and, to a lesser extent, Puerto Rico
allowed Spain to retain a significant toehold in the Americas. From
Cuba Spain tried to reconquer Mexico in 1829, and thirty years later
Cuba again provided essential support as Spain prepared to em-
bark on military adventures in Santo Domingo. With perhaps
pardonable exaggeration, the instructions to the incoming Captain-
x Preface
General in 1859 stated: 'The island of Cuba today represents much
more for modern Spain than that which all our possessions in the
American continent represented for our ancestors .. . today the
Cap tain-General of the island of Cuba is not only the governor of a
possession as important as were New Spain, Peru or Buenos Ayres, he
is even more than that; he is the forward sentinel of our interests in
the new world . . .'
Threats to Cuba were seen as threats to the vital interests of Spain
herself, a Spain determined at all costs to preserve the remnants
of her American empire. Cap tains-General of Cuba saw themselves
as surrounded by a bewildering variety of dangers and their paranoia
had a certain justification. The United States had fixed her acquisitive
eyes on the island, the Creoles within seemed to be perpetually plotting
independence and the insidious machinations of the British threat-
ened to strike at the foundation of the island's prosperity. If Britain
succeeded in fusing the time-bomb of slave liberation, Cuba would
turn into another Haiti, or so many white Cubans and Spaniards
believed. The Captains-General were kept busy keeping Cuba safe
from these ever-present perils and a grateful metropolis bestowed a
succession of titles on her sentinels as a small measure of thanks.
Many of the Captains-General who served in the island during the
1840s, 1850s and 1860s returned to high political office in Spain no
less determined to maintain Spain's Caribbean possessions.
Nineteenth-century Cuba was a Caribbean anomaly; a thriving,
expanding plantation colony built on the twin foundations of the
slave trade and slavery at a time when the other West Indian planta-
tion colonies were declining in economic and political importance
and slavery was disappearing. That Cuba should follow the path of
these other West Indian colonies was really the greatest danger in
Spanish eyes and the one her Cap tains-General feared most. They
believed the plantation economy would be doomed without slave
labour and they were sure that the presence of a large enslaved African
population acted as a check on the Creole desire for political inde-
pendence. In the minds of the colony's rulers, including the planter
class, the security of Cuba and the continuance and expansion of an
adequate labour force were tied to slavery and the slave trade.
Britain's abolitionist campaign against the Spanish slave trade
thus challenged the basic assumptions of Spanish colonial policy.
British pressure was powerful enough to force Spain to sign a treaty
in 1817, prohibiting the slave trade in Spain's empire from 1820.
A subsequent treaty was signed in 1835, strengthening the provisions
of the earlier agreement. Yet it took more than thirty years after the