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Ortega) Jose? G u a d a I u p e
Cuban Merchants) Slave Trade Knowledge) and the Atlantic World)
17985-18285 t-"
Colonial Latin American historical review) v. 15(n. 3))
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Cuban Merchants, Slave Trade Knowledge,
and the Atlantic W orId, 1790s-1820s
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA
In 1794, Mariano Carbo and his associate Pedro Diago,
newcomers to the Atlantic slave trade, hired Captain Ignacio Pica and a
crew and outfitted a ship, the Nuestra Senora del Carmen, with goods
and provisions for a slaving expedition. While sailing in the Caribbean,
Captain Pica found himself under siege by the French corsair Brutus.
Outgunned, outclassed, and outmaneuvered, Captain Pica and his crew
concluded that resisting the French corsair would be futile and
surrendered to Captain Jean Garican without incident. The French
sailors set sail for Charleston, South Carolina, with their prize, the
Nuestra Senora del Carmen, in tow.
As will be seen, the story of Nuestra Senora del Carmen does
not end with this encounter. Indeed, the connections and interactions
described above reveal the economic structural hurdles encountered by
Cuban slave merchants in the early 1800s and illustrate the
international and domestic commercial infrastructures established by
these individuals to overcome initial problems of growth related to the
Atlantic slave trade.
1
These aspects of merchant activity in the Atlantic
slave trade, largely ignored by the current historiography of the Cuban
slave trade, become closely linked with the transformation of "slave
1 While this essay focuses on Cuban slave merchants, their activities were part of
larger social and economic transformations on the island. For more information, there
are a number of essential works on eighteenth-and nineteenth-century Cuban society
that should be consulted: Franklin W. Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during the
Nineteenth Century (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970); Franklin W.
Knight, "Origins of Wealth and the Sugar Revolution in Cuba, 1750-1850," Hispanic
American Historical Review 57:2 (1977):243; and Allan J. Kuethe, Cuba, 1753-1815:
Crown, Military, and SOCiety (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986). Sherry
Johnson's work fills a huge gap in the historiography of colonial Cuba. Sherry Johnson,
The Social Transformation of Eighteenth-Century Cuba (Gainesville: University Press
of Florida, 2001), 2-3, 14-15. Laird W. Bergad has significantly expanded our
knowledge of Caribbean slave societies. Bergad's microanalysis of Matanzas allows
him to gauge the impact that sugar had on technology, ecology, and culture. Laird W.
Bergad, Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century: The Social and Economic
History of Monoculture in Matanzas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990),49,
62.
- -- ~ ~ ~ ~ ..
226 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
merchants" into merchant bankers (refaccionistas) whose presence and
influence became crucial to Cuba's economy.2
Just five days after seizing the Nuestra Senora del Carmen,
Captain Garican and the French crew of the Brutus caught sight of a far
more desirable prize on the horizon, the frigate Dos Hermanos, which
was returning from the African coast laden with 207 slaves and bound
for Havana. Refusing surrender, Captain Archibald Galbrach, a
seasoned English slave trader, briefly eluded the French before being
forced to engage them. No match for the combat-ready crew of the
Brutus, the Dos Hermanos was soon rendered inoperative; the French
cannons inflicted catastrophic structural damage, destroyed its food and
water provisions, and fatally wounded one of its captives. Ironically, by
capturing the two slaving vessels, the French crew faced a dilemma:
abandon the Nuestra Senora del Carmen or forsake the Dos Hermanos'
readily exchangeable and highly lucrative cargo.
3
The entrepreneurial Captain Ignacio Pica offered Captain
Garican a practical solution to his problem: sell the salvaged Dos
Hermanos and its slave cargo to him. Garican agreed and within
twenty-six hours they finalized the transaction in the middle of the
Caribbean Sea. The ships then sailed to Charleston where Captain Pica
exchanged the 207 slaves and battered ship for a note worth 25,000
pesos. Upon his return to the pOli of Havana, Captain Pica discovered
that news of his escapades on the high seas had preceded him. Felipe
Allwood, the financier of the Dos Hermanos, had requested an
injunction from the Merchant Tribunal, demanding that Pica return the
207 slaves.
4
2 See note 9.
3 Letter relating to Mariano Carbo and Felipe Alwood regarding the frigate Los Dos
Hermanos and a cargo of slaves guided by Ignacio Pica, [date illegilble] 1798, Archivo
Nacional de Cuba (hereinafter cited as ANC), Tribunal de Comercio, leg. 113, no. 6.
Cuban historians agree that the first successful slave voyage from Havana to Africa
took place on 18 September 1798. Manuel Moreno Fraginals, El ingenio: complejo
economico social cubano del azucar (La Hahana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1978),
1 :50. For a maritime history of French privateering in Charleston, see Melvin H.
Jackson, Privateers in Charleston, 1793-1796; an Account of a French Palatinate in
South Carolina (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1969).
4 Errors due in part to phonetic spelling abound in the record. In Spanish court
documents, Captain Jean Garican, a French merchant based in Charleston, is listed as
Jean Gaillard. Jackson, Privateers in Charleston, 69, 71. Spanish merchant tribunals
were charged with reviewing commercial disputes between traders and merchants.
Litigants submitted their disputes to a jury of peers who reviewed the merits of each
case; see Codigo de comercio comentado por una sociedad de abogados (Barcelona:
Libreria de Ramon Pujal, 1857),24-49.
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 227
The Dos Hermanos incident goes beyond the traditional
interpretations of imperial economic and political hegemony in the
Atlantic world. While North Atlantic powers altered the dynamics of
the slave trade through geopolitical struggles and abolitionist policies in
the early nineteenth century, it was the sum of individual human
encounters and exchanges that formed this community. Essentially,
Felipe Allwood's financial defeat on the high seas represents the abrupt
decline of British commercial influence in the Cuban slave trade, while
Mariano Carbo's and Pedro Diago's interloping activities as backers of
Nuestra Senora del Carmen symbolize the steady and systematic
emergence of Cuban participation in a crowded and complex industry
carried out through adaptation.
With notable exceptions, the historiography of the Cuban slave
trade emphasizes the larger political manifestations and demographic
transformations of this commerce.
s
Few of these works focus on trade
organization and merchant development. For example, David Murray
primarily reviews British diplomatic and military efforts to suppress the
Cuban slave trade. Moreno Fraginals' classic work on the sugar
industry remarks on various significant social and economic aspects of
the slave trade, but the author's analysis is dispersed throughout three
volumes. David Eltis' exceptional study outlines an integrated Atlantic
world by employing quantitative evidence while Spanish imperial
control and political largesse take center stage in Pablo Tomero's text.
Sherry Johnson comments on antagonisms between "elite ranks" of
slave merchants in the Atlantic slave trade. However, the strength of
her contribution rests on the discussion of the intra-Caribbean trade
carried out by petty merchants during the early stages of Spanish
liberalization of slave trade legislation.
6
5 This study follows the traditional political periodization of the early Spanish slave
trade, marked by Spanish liberalization in 1789, English abolition in 1807, and Spanish
abolition between 1817 and 1820. While recognizing the interplay between geopolitics
and society, the discourse nonetheless emphasizes the fundamental social and economic
interactions between individuals in the Atlantic world. For the periodization of the
Cuban slave trade, see Jose Luciano Franco, Comercio clandestino de esc/avos (La
Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1996), and Fraginals, El ingenio. Both Corwin
and David Murray discuss in detail the changes brought about to the trade by the North
Atlantic powers, including the abolition of the slave trade by Great Britain and the
United States, the end of the Napoleonic Wars, and the imposition and enforcement of
slave trade treaties upon Spain by the United Kingdom.
6 David R. Murray, Odious Commerce: Britain, Spain, and the Abolition o/the Slave
Trade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Other essential studies include
Herbert S. Klein, The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the Atlantic Slave Trade
228 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
Scholars largely place Cuban slave merchants at a distinct
disadvantage vis-it-vis other Atlantic merchants. According to these
interpretations, Cuban slave merchants were either outpaced by "North
American domination," "dependent on North Americans," or "relied
heavily on American and British carriers."? That English, American,
and Portuguese shippers possessed a competitive advantage in this
specialized field in the early nineteenth century is undeniable.
8
However, the language employed by scholars (domination,
dependency, and reliance) implies a unilateral association that often
overlooks the more nuanced dimensions of economic and social
relationships. The interactions between Cuban and North Atlantic
merchants were not necessarily based on economic domination or
commercial dependency. Indeed, throughout this era, Cuban slave
merchants expanded their knowledge of the slave trade by manipulating
existing North Atlantic commercial and financial networks.
For Cuban slave merchants, the period between the l790s and
1820s is characterized by three capitalist productive phases, namely
competition, growth, and efficiency. Between 1789 and 1807, Cuban
participation in a highly competitive environment marked by
geopolitical instability resulting from the French Revolution, the
obstruction of trade brought about by the Napoleonic Wars, and, to a
lesser extent, the British abolitionist movement, yielded lackluster
results for a potentially burgeoning domestic industry. However, from
1808 to 1817, Cuban slave merchants expanded their commercial
knowledge, experience, and financial capabilities to continue the
(Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1978); David Eltis, Economic Growth and
the End of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987);
Pablo Tornero Tinajero, Crecimiento econ6mico y trans formaciones sociales: esclavos,
hacendados y comerciantes en la Cuba colonial, 1760-1840 (Madrid: Ministerio de
Trabajo y Seguridad Social, 1996); Moreno Fraginals, El ingenio; and Franco,
Comercio clandestino. Sherry Johnson's work sheds much needed light on the early
development of the Cuban slave trade. Sheny Johnson, "The Rise and Fall of Creole
Participation in the Cuban Slave Trade, 1789-1796," Cuban Studies (2000):52-75. For
the transformative effects of warfare and military spending on the Atlantic slave trade,
see Evelyn P. Jennings, "War as the 'Forcing House of Change': State Slavery in Late-
Eighteenth-Century Cuba," The William and Mary Quarterly 62:3 (2005):411-40.
7 Johnson, "The Rise and Fall of Creole Participation," 52; and Franco, Comercio
ciandestino, 89. Eltis' approach is slightly more neutral. Eltis, Economic Growth, 44.
8 Torres Ramirez asserts that despite royal privileges, Spanish commercial efforts
were hampered by a general lack of organization and the inability to establish direct
trade with western Africa in the eighteenth century. Bibiano Tones Ramirez, La
compafiia gaditana de negros (Sevilla: La Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos,
1973),111-18.

-
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 229
process of growth and development. Despite British enforcement of the
slave treaty ending Spanish participation in 1817, by the 1820s, Cuban
slave merchants were fully entrenched in the Atlantic slave trade and
linked their activities to the domestic production of sugar. While
political shifts looming in the background altered the Atlantic world, it
was the sum of individual human encounters that propelled the
expansion of the Cuban slave trade.
Cuban slave merchants anchored their successes in the Atlantic
world by developing vertical integration and by establishing
supplemental commercial services such as shipping and insurance.
Indeed, as a social identifier the term "slave merchant" is limiting and
misleading, since these individuals performed multiple functions in
Cuban society and the economy; they could have easily been labeled
merchant bankers or landowners (hacendados) as well. The term "slave
merchant" is a misnomer popularized by the British abolitionist
movement, which was 'later adopted by historians. As a result of its
longevity and its usefulness in comparative historical articulation, the
terrn will be retained as appropriate for the task at hand.
9
When
describing specific economic functions, however, other labels will be
employed to reflect such distinctions. For example, a well-established
Cuban slave merchant of the 1820s could finance slave voyages to
Africa, export sugar to North Atlantic economies, finance sugar mills,
and acquire plantations and urban real estate. Immediately following
the limited successes of Cuban slave merchants in the 1790s, this new
group ascended in the early 1800s and consolidated a clear economic
and social presence in Havana by the early 1820s.
When analyzing the Atlantic slave trade, the paradigm of
peninsular-creole is especially limiting and oftentimes implies a clear
division of interests between regional groups. It cannot fully describe
the intricate social and economic relations among individuals in the
9 For the period under study, Cuban slave merchants identified themselves as
"merchants," or comerciantes, not as "slave merchants" or negreros. In nineteenth-
century Cuba, the term comerciante was a generic term applied to any individual
associated with the import-export trade; this included merchants exporting sugar,
importing slaves, and refaccionistas. A refaccionista provided landowners with
revolving credit accounts and financial services for a mill's yearly operation. The term
mercader was reserved for retail merchants. For an overview of the historiography on
Spanish American merchants, see James Lockhart, "The Merchants of Early Spanish
America," in Of Things of the Indies: Essays Old and New in Early Latin American
History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000),158-82. For linguistic mutations of
the terms mercader and comerciante, see Fred Bronner, "Urban Society in Colonial
Spanish America," Latin American Research Review 21: 1 (1986): 15.
230 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
Atlantic setting. In general, then, this work utilizes the term IISpanish
merchant
ll
when discussing the larger commercial interests of
individuals, vis-a-vis other Atlantic traders. This designation is
especially useful when elaborating on commercial activities in the
Atlantic Ocean and the African coast, where the regional origins of
Spanish captains, sailors, and slave factors-agents who procured
slaves and advised those interested in the business-were often blurred
because of the transient nature of their occupations. The term IICuban
merchant
ll
is applied herein to merchants who, regardless of origin, not
only conducted business on the island but also established economic
and social roots in Cuba.
As will be seen, the origin of a given merchant within the
Spanish empire had little to do with social integration in Cuba. Instead,
it was a combination of economic functions and associations that
defined an individual's place in society. In 1814, the House of Inglada
hired Captain Miguel Moran on consignment for a series of voyages to
West Africa. Moran, along with Ignacio Inglada, Gabriel Lombillo, and
Jose Marfa Zequeira, were among the six significant investors. Despite
the fact that all four individuals were close associates and slave
merchants by trade, a clear socioeconomic division existed between
them. Lombillo arrived in Havana from the Spanish province of Malaga
in the early 1800s and in due course acquired the title of Count of the
House of Lombillo. Zequeira was a Catholic priest from a well-
established family that had arrived in Cuba in the mid-1600s. Inglada
was a merchant from Barcelona who eventually returned to Spain in
1821 after amassing a fortune. Compared to his business partners,
Moran's socioeconomic background was rather ordinary. Arriving in
Cuba in the early 1800s from Jij6n, Moran married, established
permanent residency in Havana, and purchased a modest home. In spite
of assimilating into Cuban society, his occupation as the captain of a
slave ship eclipsed his financial activities and served as his main
identity for his close associates. 10
While Moran's commercial dealings were similar if not
identical to those of his cohorts, the group did not consider Moran to be
one of them. To Inglada, Zequeira, and Lombillo, Moran was an
adventurer, a mere mercenary. When a dispute over profits and
commissions arose, the claims and contentions between the different
members exposed distinct social tensions. For instance, regarding
10 Isidro Inglada against Miguel Monin regarding slave expeditions, 26 February
1821, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, first section, leg. 260, no 1.
-
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 231
Moran's assertions that he was an investor in the voyage and not an
employee of the firm, Inglada and his associates acrimoniously
declared the following:
What truly causes indignation is that Moran comes to us
wanting more, but it was Inglada who sacrificed his
personal industry and capital. Now he (Moran) is
complaining that he exposed his life to the dangers ofthe
seas and the deadly climates of the ports and roads of
Africa and that he struggled and navigated them with the
help of his African assistants? He wants more for such
considerations? Why, because we enjoyed the bosom of
our families? He received his fee and he got what he
deserved. How can he call himself a partner without
actually being one?!!
While Moran invested matching shares in several voyages,
Inglada, Zequeira, and Lombillo did not regard him as a financier or
capitalist like themselves. Yet it is apparent that Moran rightfully
considered himself an equal investor of the enterprise, stating: "I came
into this enterprise with cash in hand, and from the beginning I owned
one-sixth of the expedition. But Inglada never respected my interests
and went against my explicit orders." lnglada argued that Moran "was
not an equal partner because he served as a transporter and was not
involved in the subsequent sale of the cargo." He continued by adding
that Moran simply enjoyed a "few leisurely outings" in the Atlantic and
that "he has gained enough income to make his family happy." 12 By
emphasizing Moran's commercial activities in West Africa,
downplaying his role on the domestic side of the business, and directly
linking these pursuits with his social standing and income potential in
Havana, the other members of the company delineated clear-cut
socioeconomic boundaries within the group.
In a vigorous Atlantic society like Havana, a merchant could
neutralize the effects of his humble beginnings or render his geographic
origins irrelevant by following an established commercial career
11 Isidro Inglada versus Miguel Moran regarding accounts and slave expeditions, 22
April 1823, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, third section, leg. 261, no. 4, fol. 452. Unless
otherwise indicated, all translations are the author's.
12 Isidro Inglada versus Miguel Moran regarding slave expeditions, 18 December
1821 and 14 February 1822, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, first section, leg. 260, no. 1;
emphasis added.
232 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
trajectory-trading slaves, exporting sugar, financing voyages and/or
agricultural estates-thus transcending the matter of initial regional
connections, whether in the Iberian Peninsula or Spanish America.
Regardless of regional locality, Inglada (peninsular), Lombillo
(peninsular), and Zequeira (creole) all shared a common socioeconomic
identity by financing and provisioning slave voyages and linking these
commercial activities with the Cuban part of the trade. However,
notable social nuances between slave merchants established a
discemable hierarchical order. While Moran was also a financier, his
direct link to Africa, where he continued trafficking and physically
handling slaves, reduced his socioeconomic status among other
merchants in Havana.
This particular case also demonstrates some of the commercial
variations found within the general designation of "slave merchant."
From Inglada's perspective, who sought to elevate his own position in
the company, Moran was a common trader involved in some of the
least attractive aspects of the business, such as extended absences in the
Atlantic Ocean, constantly facing the perils of the seas, exposure to
extreme environmental elements along with the possibility of disease,
and contact with the African continent. Zequeira was an investor who
participated in the Atlantic slave trade on a casual and indirect basis. As
the director of the merchant house, Inglada, like many other, merchants,
began his career as a slave factor for an affiliated firm before he
branched out independently, reinvested, collected his profits, and then
returned to the Iberian Peninsula. 'Lombillo at first shared several
socioeconomic characteristics with Inglada, such as operating the
business through partnerships, determining the market value of slaves
in Havana, overseeing transactions with planters, and arranging the
terms of payment or credit. But unlike Inglada, who kept his
commercial activities situated within the Havana harbor, Lombillo
expanded even further into the economy and society by vertically
integrating every aspect of the business, establishing roots on the island
and becoming a Cuban merchant. However, completion of this process
often took a generation.
Despite the unbridled enthusiasm of merchants on the island,
transitioning from general maritime commerce into a highly specialized
business occupied by more experienced North Atlantic powers proved
difficult for Cuban merchants. Without a doubt, island merchants not
only lacked practical experience and technical knowledge for
participation in such a complex venture, but also the necessary social
and economic infrastructure in the Atlantic world. As Havana
-
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 233
merchants soon discovered, entering the Atlantic slave trade was not a
simple matter of provisioning a vessel and sailing it to West Africa.
The process involved a number of intricate and interrelated
stages on both sides of the Atlantic in which Cuban merchants were not
competitive during the initial liberalization of the slave trade. As will
be seen, several limitations, including a dearth of marketable goods,
trained sailors, and slave factors, vague trading regulations,
underdeveloped commercial contacts in West Africa, and the absence
of Spanish slave factories (discussed below), held back the growth of a
stable trading apparatus for two decades following Spain's 1789 decree
liberalizing the slave trade.
Specifically, the residual effects of centuries-old mercantilist
traditions hampered the initial expansion of the Cuban slave trade.
Cuban merchants lacked the necessary trading goods to purchase slaves
in West Africa due to antiquated commercial networks. While the
Spanish Crown declared "free trade" in 1778 with much pomp and
circumstance, the concept of free trade was far from the classic
nineteenth-century definition of the phrase. Instead, the royal decree
continued to safeguard mercantilist principles. While Cadiz merchants
lost their legal stranglehold on trade with the Americas, they
maintained a de facto monopoly with New Spain. Regulations lacked
the institutional incentives to encourage Spanish merchants to seek
other markets. For the merchants of Cadiz, Havana continued to
represent a commercial backwater of the Spanish empire with limited
market appeal vis-a-vis Mexico.
13
The required commodities for
exchange in West Africa were unavailable in Cuba or were relatively
more expensive than those found in other North Atlantic ports.
Frustrated by the Crown's flawed approach to the liberalization of slave
trade laws, Cuban merchants organized and advocated change.
14
Along
with hacendado groups, Cuban merchants proposed a political and
economic framework based on sugar and slavery that would ultimately
13 For Spanish merchants, New Spain continued to be their most lucrative market
well into the 1800s. Indeed, between 1797 and 1819, Cadiz averaged 77 percent of all
Spanish exports to the Americas. For the same period, 55.2 percent of Cadiz exports
were shipped to New Spain, while the West Indies absorbed a mere 6.5 percent of total
exports. John Fisher, "Imperial 'Free Trade' and the Hispanic Economy, 1778-1796,"
Journal of Latin American Studies 13:1 (1981):22-23, 39, 45; and John R. Fisher,
"Commerce and Imperial Decline: Spanish Trade with Spanish America, 1797-1820,"
Journal of Latin American Studies 30:3 (1998):462, 470, 473, 476.
14 For an analysis of the administrative inconsistencies in Spanish commercial policy
at the turn of the nineteenth century, see Fisher, "Commerce and Imperial Decline,"
478.
234 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
transform the island. Swayed by active lobbying efforts, the Crown
tacitly recognized the growing commercial potential of its citadel
colony. 15
In the wake of Cuban merchant demands and political upheaval
in Saint Domingue, the Crown introduced a number of administrative
incentives designed to stimulate the Cuban sugar economy, and the
liberalization of the slave trade in 1789 formed the cornerstone of such
efforts. 16 Nevertheless, despite the expansive trading concessions
introduced by the Crown in the 1790s, Cuban slave merchants did not
immediately capitalize upon imperial policies. For at least ten years
after the 1789 edict, merchants of various nationalities supplied the
island with slaves from readily available secondary markets in Jamaica,
Dominica, New Providence, and Charleston. Even so, the number of
Havana-based expeditions and imports from these destinations were
relatively inconsequential compared to the combined French, Dutch,
English, and American efforts. Smaller domestic carriers, trading an
assortment of goods and foodstuffs besides slaves, led most of these
expeditions,l?
A high proportion of intra-Caribbean expeditions arriving in
Havana transported fewer than five slaves per voyage. In all likelihood,
these merchants were profiting from newly enacted Spanish trading
provisions granting export tax exemptions on colonial goods shipped to
foreign ports for the purpose of importing slaves into Cuba.
18
American
merchants adopted a similar commercial pattern, selling shipments of
15 Dale Tomich, "The Wealth of Empire: Francisco Arango y Parrefto, Political
Economy, and the Second Slavery," Comparative Studies in Society and History 45:1
(2003):4-28. Arango y Parrefto held that technology and innovation would modernize
Cuba's sugar industrial complex and establish a competitive edge against foreign
producers. Francisco de Arango y Parrefto, "Discurso sobre la agricultl.lra de la Habana
y medios para fomentaria," in Obras de D. Francisco de Arango y Parreno (La
Habana: Direcci6n de Cultura, Ministerio de Edl.lcaci6n, 1952), 1:137-38.
16 Albeit with minor restrictions, the slave trade was now open to all foreigners and
Spaniards alike, thus eliminating a long tradition of granting monopolies to a few firms.
By expanding the docking rights in Havana's harbor for foreign vessels from eight to
forty days, the Spanish Crown enabled merchants to fully negotiate fair market prices
for their slaves while potentially reducing the number of illicit sales on the island. In
tum, Crown concessions to Spanish merchants authorized the exportation of any
commodities deemed necessary for the successful completion of African expeditions.
Royal Decree regarding the sale of l.Illseasoned slaves, 2 April 1804, ANC, Real
Consulado, leg. 74, no. 2836.
17 Johnson, "The Rise and Fall of Creole Participation," 55.
18 James Ferguson King, "Evolution of the Free Trade Principle in Spanish Colonial
Administration," The Hispanic American Historical Review 22: I (1942):54-55.
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 235
flour in Havana with four or five slaves imported from the nearby
Dutch islands to circumvent the Spanish ban on direct trade with its
colonies.!9 The cargoes of the petty Cuban slave merchants were
similarly mundane, consisting of foodstuffs from New England and St.
Agustine, and lumber from New Orleans.
20
More than a decade after
the liberalization of the slave trade, Cuban merchants were failing to
meet domestic demand for slaves on the island, prompting individuals
newly entrenched in this industry to assess their own shortcomings and
institute methods to address them.
A relative newcomer to Havana, Santiago de la Cuesta y
Manzanal represented the second wave of slave merchants who, as a
group, consolidated a domestic commercial apparatus by the 1820s. His
critical treatise of 1803 outlines the structural difficulties still haunting
Cuban slave merchants in the early nineteenth century. Although
clearly frustrated with royal indifference to long-standing demands by
Spaniards in Cuba for the liberalization of the slave trade, Cuesta y
Manzanal stopped ShOli of blaming the Crown for the general lack of
domestic experience in transatlantic commercial ventures. According to
Cuesta y Manzanal, Spanish political indifference to merchant
demands, combined with foreign monopolies, impeded the
development of a Havana-based slave trading system?! Moreover, new
royal regulations establishing quotas for Spanish sailors aboard Cuban
slaving vessels actually produced unintended consequences. By
discouraging Cuban merchants from exclusively hiring foreign
nationals, the decrees reduced the free exchange of commercial
information and thereby diminished the overall growth of the industry.
Yet several Cuban slave merchants circumvented imperial legislation.
Regardless of royal regulations, individuals such as Cuesta y Manzanal
maintained close ties with British and American slave traders.
22
19 Linda K. Salvucci, "Atlantic Intersections: Early American Commerce and the
Rise of the West Indies (Cuba)," Business History Review 79:4 (2005):803; and
Murray, Odious Commerce, 14.
20 Jolmson, "The Rise and Fall of Creole Participation," 57.
21 Observations made by Cuesta Manzanal and Company regarding the slave trade,
23 November 1803, ANC, Real Consulado, leg. 74, no. 2836. Seeking a dynamic
Spanish Royal commercial policy, Francisco Arango y Parrefio and the Havana-based
Royal Consulate actively sought the perspectives of Havana slave merchants to bolster
their demands for an expansion of slave trade. Franco, Comercio clandestino, 92-93.
22 Cuesta y Manzanal and his close associates, Francisco Hernandez and Martin
Tarafa, maintained active commercial ties with foreign slave merchants for the plU1Jose
of trade knowledge acquisition. Observations made by Cuesta Manzanal and Company
regarding the slave trade, 23 November 1803, ANC, Real Consulado, leg. 74, no. 2836;
236 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
By purchasing shipments on consignment or hiring foreign
captains and crews, Cuban slave merchants gained the critical expertise
that escaped them in the eighteenth century. It was no coincidence that
Cuban slave merchants preferred English shippers. The close of the
eighteenth centmy saw Liverpool merchants occupying a sizable
portion of the North Atlantic slave trade. Indeed, the impetus of the
Industrial Revolution promoted economic efficiency among all English
merchants, and Liverpool slave merchants were no different, excelling
in this particular field as well.
23
On a similar plane, Rhode Island slave
merchants had been offering their services to Cubans since the mid-
1780s. Cuban slave merchants consigned British cargoes and hired
American crews because they were the most efficient carriers of the
time, not necessarily because their counterparts were dominating
them.
24
Nevertheless, Cuban merchants were unwilling to limit
themselves to the domestic side of the trade.
In 1803 several Cuban slave merchants developed a prospectus
for the African Company of Havana, a firm conceptualized as a forum
for the unfettered exchange of Atlantic commercial knowledge. The
company's primary mission was to organize and finance slave
expeditions to Africa directly from the island and to establish a physical
presence on the continent. In a departure from previous failed efforts of
the 1790s, the African Company of Havana abstained from calling for a
commercial monopoly.25 The proposal outlined the structural
and Pedro Diago and Nicolas Mendive versus the American Guillenno Marterton
regarding slaves, 7 July 1799, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, leg. 157, no. 10.
23 B.K. Drake, "The Liverpool-African Voyage c. 1790-1807: Commercial
Problems," in Liverpool, the African Slave Trade, and Abolition: Essays to Illustrate
Current Knowledge and Research, by Roger Anstey and P.E.H. Hair (Liverpool:
Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 1976), 126.
24 Along with expertise, the neutral status of American carriers was an attractive
commercial alternative to Cuban merchants during a time of political instability in the
Atlantic and an era of British naval control of the sea lanes. Slave imports into Havana
from Rhode Island increased substantially after the outbreak of European hostilities in
1793. By 1795 American merchants possessed 51 percent of the slave market in
Havana. Jay Coughtry credits the war between Spain and England for the inflated
prices of the era. Jay Coughtry, The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island and the African
Slave Trade, 1700-1807 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981), 174. However,
Bergad, et aI., attribute the sharp rise in prices after 1795 to the pent-up demand for
tropical products in the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution. Laird W. Bergad, Fe
Iglesias Garcia, and Maria del Carmen Barcia, The Cuban Slave Market, 1790-1880
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995),21.
25 In the early 1790s, a group of Spanish merchants petitioned the Crown for
monopoly rights to the Atlantic slave trade. Franco, Comercio clandestino, 147;

,
I f
=
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 237
commercial duplication of Liverpool merchant houses. Indeed, these
merchants were actively seeking guidance from their English
counterparts.
26
The proposed method of absorption centered on the
creation of Spanish merchant houses in London and Liverpool to
transmit credit and provisions and coordinate direct voyages to Africa
from Cuba. Merchants in Havana proposed the formation of "floating
slave factories" anchored off the coast to compete with Portuguese,
French, English, and American slave factories in Africa. Each floating
slave factory would consist of a principal ship warehousing general
merchandise purchased in England. Spanish slavers would rendezvous
with the primary ship, exchange information on the current state of the
trade, and acquire the necessary goods to trade with African merchants.
As part of the floating slave factory complex, smaller and faster ships
would sail to London and Havana, communicate with financiers, and
report on the status of their dealings. The entire commercial apparatus
was billed as a floating slave trade school, where the Spanish would
gain valuable experience in the Atlantic slave trade.
27
Throughout most of the 1810s the social and economic ties
established between British and Spanish slave traders in previous
decades continued. Yet the nature of such relations began to change;
Spanish merchants were no longer juni0r partners. Increasingly,
merchants directly financed expeditions to Africa from Cuba.
Additionally, the ships were now regularly staffed with Spanish crews
and officers. However, despite continued growth, companies in Havana
persistently encountered commercial and structural bottlenecks that
impeded their unrestrained progress.
Acquiring technical knowledge for the Atlantic slave trade was
not particularly difficult in itself, and Spanish merchants were no less
capable than their European counterparts in matters of commerce.
Nevertheless, experience of the pitfalls of conducting business on the
African coast, including notable human losses on the high seas, marked
Johnson, "The Rise and Fall of Creole Participation," 62; and Tomero, Crecimiento
econ6mico y transformaciones sociales, 54-55.
26 Document relating to the formation of a national company for the purpose of
establishing the slave trade directly with the coast of Africa, 12 January 1803, ANC;
Asuntos Polfticos, leg. 106, no. 9. The proposal stated: "We should precisely gain
knowledge under the auspices of the slave trading nations, and by this we mean the
English," adding, "Both the English and the French have actively maintained the
requisite knowledge and the best establishments in Africa with a great deal of
and without interruption."
2 General prospectus of the first operations proposed by the African Company of
Havana, 15 February 1803, ANC, Asuntos Politicos, leg. 106, no. 9.
238 COLONIAL LA TIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
the second major phase of Spanish participation in the Atlantic slave
trade.
The topographical complexities of the West African coastline
placed a premium on excellent seamanship. High surfs from December
to April made landings difficult and often dangerous, sometimes
resulting in significant losses, injuries, and death. Avoiding such
hazards required that a vessel seek the safety of deeper waters rather
than anchoring near the shore.
28
Nevertheless, at times inexperienced
crews anchored too close to the shore, hoping to facilitate the loading
of their human cargo. Sometimes such shortcuts came at a high price.
Strong winds and violent waves could batter, shove, and relocate
vessels onto bars or reefs. Despite some losses, by the 1810s Spaniards
had acquired the specialized nautical skills from British and American
crews.
29
Obtaining the practical knowledge for the maintenance of
human health during the voyage to the Americas was somewhat of an
elusive task for Spanish and foreign merchants alike in the early
nineteenth century. Typical prerequisites for a successful voyage
included a seasoned crew with prior experience in slave trading, a
doctor with a familiarity in caring for captives on long journeys, and a
captain with a general concern for slave nourishment and hygiene. The
development of health regulations and standards for human cargo came
about relatively late in the Atlantic slave trade. With the passage of the
Dolben's Act in 1788, British legislators established guidelines that
became the industry's standard. In short, the Dolben's Act emphasized
28 George E. Brooks, Yankee Traders, Old Coasters and African Middlemen; A
History of American Legitimate Trade with West Africa in the Nineteenth Century
(Brookline, Mass.: Boston University Press, 1970), 80.
29 Brooks, Yankee Traders, Old Coasters and African Middlemen, 80. Poor
seamanship and leadership on one Spanish vessel resulted in fatal consequences.
Amidst conflicting advice from crew members, Captain Juan Agustin Conill sailed the
polacre San Francisco de Paula up the Bight of Biafra, anchoring near the Port of
Calabar. Soon after loading 301 slaves, winds and fierce waves thrashed the vessel,
positioning it on top of a sandbar. Anchored and failing to employ its sails, the San
Francisco took the brunt of the tumultuous storm. Unable to sail, the vessel capsized
and began its steady descent into the sea. Most of the crew members abandoned the
ship and were rescued by nearby vessels. However, the slaves remained imprisoned for
six hours as the ship continued to sink. All 301 slaves perished. Ranking officers,
including the captain, were of Spanish origin. The harbor pilot was English. Merchants
based in Cuba had funded the expedition and the ship had originally set sail from
Havana. Juan Agustin Conill, captain of the polacre San Francisco de Paula, regarding
a shipment of slaves, [date illegible] 1817, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, leg. 134, no. 3.
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 239
health and hygiene, mandated a fixed ratio of five slaves per three tons,
and compelled ship owners to hire trained surgeons.
3D
Paralleling the English experience of the previous century,
heavy human losses in the Atlantic characterized the Spanish slave
trade of the early l810s. After several well-publicized maritime
disasters, administrative officials in Havana feared that sea-borne
illnesses would infect the general population. As modem bureaucrats,
Havana officials focused their attention on the general disregard of
maritime regulations by domestic merchants. Although slave merchants
were not beyond reproach, early Spanish slave trade regulations, unlike
the British codes of 1788, lacked specific guidelines for slave welfare
during the voyage to the Americas. The general maritime codes of the
Royal Regulations of the Council of Cadiz of 1791 suggested staffing
all commercial voyages with a surgeon or barber ("bleeder") when
ferrying passengers. However, most Cuban ships bound for Africa
never met the required surgeon-to-passenger ratio. Ship owners
violated the spirit if not the letter of the commercial codes when their
returning vessels, loaded with hundreds of slaves, lay beyond the reach
of Spanish bureaucrats.
3
!
Like their British counterparts, merchants and officials in
Havana hypothesized that a direct correlation existed between
excessive slave deaths and the availability of on-board surgeons.
Following a disproportionate number of seemingly preventable deaths
of both slaves and crew members on the frigates Dos Amigos,
Consejero, Brillante Rosa, and Amistad in the early 1810s, the Havana
municipal council established an investigative committee led by Tomas
Romay, the director of Surgery and Medicine.
32
.
Dr. Romay's medical report contrasted modemity and
barbarity, juxtaposing advancements in law and logic with the
30 The effectiveness of mandating surgeons on slave ships is questioned by Richard
H. Steckel and Richard A. Jensen, "New Evidence on the Causes of Slave and Crew
Mortality in the Atlantic Slave Trade," The Journal of Economic HistOlY 46:1 (1986):
57 -77. In discussing the cubic displacement of maritime vessels, the terms "ton" and
"tonnage" are often employed. Tonnage refers to either the size of the vessel or the
amount of the ship's cargo. Timoteo Q'Scanlan, Diccionario maritimo espanol (Madrid:
ImRrenta Real, 1831), 526-28.
1 Document related to the health and well-being of slaves crossing from the coast of
Africa to Havana, 9 July 1811, ANC, Junta de Fomento, expo 752, leg. 150, no. 7409,
fols.5-8.
32 Document related to the health and well-being of slaves crossing from the coast of
Africa to Havana, 1 April 1811 ~ U d 17 July 1811, ANC, Junta de Fomento, expo 752,
leg. 150, no. 7409, fo1s. 1-2.
240 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUl\1MER 2006
immorality, greed, and ignorance of Cuban slave merchants. Dr.
Romay chastised two ship owners in particular for their tight-fisted
approach to an already depraved business by declaring, "As a result of
a complete disregard of stated regulations, or perhaps because of the
miserly economy and stinginess of two individuals, 192 have
perished. ,,33 It seemed incomprehensible to Dr. Romay that slave
merchants could not grasp the logic of spending 1,000 pesos for a
surgeon's salary if the outlay would have been recovered by saving
three slaves. To emphasize his position Dr. Romay added the following
to his harangue:
Argiielles and Alcocer participate in an unjust, depraved,
and barbarous commerce. Is the agricultural
development of the island and the prosperity of a few
individuals preferable to the life of even one man?34
While Romay's tone certainly echoed the British abolitionist rhetoric of
the era, it did not actually call for a cessation of the slave trade. In fact,
Romay was an ardent supporter of the purported civilizing aspects of
slavery. Although Romay may have sympathized with the wretched
state of slaves during their voyage to the Americas and the manner in
which Africans were "ripped from their homes and entombed in the
abyss of the sea," he nonetheless displayed the typical European
condescension toward African culture. For Dr. Romay, Africans
"wander in the jungle, without a home, without laws and without
religion." Nevertheless,' Dr. Romay believed that the moment they
entered a slave ship Africans became royal vassals, subject to Spanish
legal protection and the "benefit of religion. ,,35
Romay's mission led him to Captain Jose Pereira Sira of the
Portuguese brigantine Buen Amigo, which had docked in Havana
before saj1jng to Pernambuco. The 130-ton Buen Amigo sailed from
Africa with 319 slaves on a 34-day voyage, losing one captive. The
33 Document related to the health and well-being of slaves crossing from the coast of
Africa to Havana, 12 July 1811, ANC, Junta de Fomento, expo 752, leg. 150, no. 7409,
fo!. 5.
34 Document related to the health and well-being of slaves crossing from the coast of
Africa to Havana, 12 July 1811, ANC, Junta de Fomento, expo 752, leg. 150, no. 7409,
fo!. 5.
35 Document related to the health and well-being of slaves crossing from the coast of
Africa to Havana, 12 July 1811, ANC, Junta de Fomento, expo 752, leg. 150, no. 7409,
fol. 5.
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 241
vessel conspicuously lacked a surgeon but nevertheless managed a
survival rate far superior to similar Spanish ships of the time. When
queried about his success, Captain Sira responded that the key to his
high survival rates was his fair and moral treatment of slaves.
Apparently, Captain Sira adopted measures for their relative comfort
below deck and permitted the slaves to regularly walk the deck and
"breathe the pure air." Sira added that he kept ill treatment and "terror
ll
to a minimum. However, Sira's most important recommendations
concerned the quantity and quality of food and the "abundant supply of
drinking water" administered to slaves during their captivity.36
Based on empirical investigations, Romay's conclusions
emphasized the general neglect and poor treatment slaves received
from Spanish crews during their voyage to Cuba. Romay especially
believed that tight packing was economically inefficient because it
resulted in high death rates. For example, the Amistad, which lost 545
of its 733 captives at sea, exceeded the recommended tonnage
requirements outlined by the British regulations of 1788. The doctor
hypothesized that because the vessel left the African coast during the
rainy season, the weather generated squalid living and foul breathing
conditions, resulting in respiratory problems for all onboard. Romay
discounted the idea that providing slaves with ample provisions would
have reduced the number of deaths. Romay's conclusions, however,
contradict the extensive historiography on the topic of tight packing,
which does not find any correlation between overloading and death
rates.
37
Regardless of the validity of its conclusions, Romay's
committee and the investigative apparatus it employed point to a
discemable exchange of slave trade knowledge among Atlantic
merchants. Overall, the information that the committee gathered and
presented sought to improve the efficiency of this rapidly expanding
but loosely regulated Spanish industry.38
36 Document related to the health and well-being of slaves crossing from the coast of
Africa to Havana, 12 July 1811, ANC, Junta de Fomento, expo 752, leg. 150, no. 7409,
fo1. 5. Smith argues that as African intermediaries, Portuguese merchants played a vital
role in the Spanish Atlantic slave trade. Smith's second assertion, that the Portuguese
financed slave voyages to Cuba, is not as convincing. Gervase Clarence-Smith, "The
Portuguese Contribution to the Cuban Slave and Coolie Trades in the Nineteenth
Century," Slavery and Abolition 5: I (1984):24-33.
37 The Middle Passage by Herbert Klein is still the most authoritative account on
matters of life and death on the high seas.
38 The report was submitted to the Royal Consulate, a commercial committee
occupied by Spanish merchants and planters. For an overview on the importance of
Spanish Royal Consulates, see Robert Smith, The Spanish Guild Merchant: A History
242 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
Indeed, Romay's findings provide clues that may be relevant to
the excessive death rates on the Consejero and the Brillante Rosa.
U nUke their Portuguese counterpart, the Buen Amigo, the length of the
voyages of both Spanish frigates surpassed that of the Portuguese
vessel by twenty to thirty days. Scholars have indicated that death rates
among slave ships varied between points of embarkation, suggesting
that epidemics played a relatively small role and that food and,
specifically, water supplies were far more important considerations.
The daily ration of a pint of water for slaves proved to be physically
debilitating. Inadequate water supplies and the Spanish approach to
slave purchases in Africa may have been the primary causes of high
death rates on Cuban vessels.
39
Throughout the 181Os, Spaniards lacked national slave
factories in AfHca; thus, captains were compelled to sail along the coast
and purchase slaves on a piecemeal basis. This commercial reality
inadvertently extended the duration of the voyage. Additionally, as
captains sailed the coast to complete their cargo, previous slave
purchases were kept below deck, where temperatures reached up to 130
degrees, increasing perspiration and dehydration. Such commercial
procedures compromised foodstuffs and water supplies, consequently
challenging the immune systems of slaves and crew members alike.
Additionally, the necessity of avoiding the hurricane season in the
Caribbean (between July and September) compelled Spanish
expeditions to sail for the African coast between November and May,
the hottest months in Africa.
4o
Thus, the provision of foodstuffs and
water and the coordination of departure and travel times to and from
West Africa proved to be causal factors in human mortality.
The height of the African wet season may also have exposed
trading ventures to unnecessary economic risks. One particular incident
in 1815 illustrates how poor planning and inexperience hampered a
Cuban expedition to West Africa, which ultimately resulted in
of the Consulado, 1250-1700 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1940). Peter Lampros
argues that planters in Havana controlled the Royal Consulate during the early
nineteenth century. Peter Lampros, "Merchant-Planter Cooperation and Conflict: The
Havana Consulado, 1794-1832" (Ph.D. dissertation, Tulane University, 1980), 19.
39 Kenneth F. Kiple and Brian T. Higgins, "Mortality Caused by Dehydration During
the Middle Passage," Social Science History 13:4 (1989):422.
40 David Eltis, "Mortality and Voyage Length in the Middle Passage: New Evidence
from the Nineteenth Century," The Journal of Economic History 44:2 (1984):301-08;
James C. Riley, "Mortality on Long-Distance Voyages in the Eighteenth Century," The
Journal of Economic History 41:3 (1981 ):651-56; and Kiple and Higgins, "Mortality
Caused by Dehydration During the Middle Passage," 424.
-
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 243
contagion. Primarily financed by Isidro Inglada, the Spanish schooner
Restauradora an-ived in Port Bonny in the middle of the African wet
season. This season, approximately between June and October
depending on the coast, presented a number of commercial and
practical problems that increased the likelihood of illness among the
crew and slave cargo. Due to impassable roads, the number of slaves
available for purchase in Africa decreased during the rainy season,
which, in effect, extended the duration of slaving expeditions.
41
The administrative investigation of the Restaurada illustrates
these points. Pounded by ton-ential rains, Captain Santiago Valdez
failed to meet his consignment obligations. Compounding matters, the
crew and the slave cargo became seriously ill soon after setting sail. An
onboard epidemic resulted in the deaths of fifty-two slaves, the captain,
and the boatswain. A lack of provisions and medical assistanoe further
debilitated the health of everyone onboard. The general disan-ay proved
to be so severe that a British naval crew who boarded the Spanish
vessel abandoned efforts to capture the prize, allowing the Restaurada
to sail for Havana unimpeded. However, the ship never reached
Havana; instead, it lumbered into Santiago de Cuba. Suffering from
serious bouts of fever and dysentery, the remaining slaves were sold at
a discount to slave traders dealing in unhealthy slaves.
42
The consequences of not having a network of Spanish slave
factories on the African coast became especially apparent for merchants
from the mid- to late-l 8 I Os During this period, Spanish captains
reported significant slave shortages in Africa, a fact that forced them to
alter their purchasing patterns. Instead of purchasing one or two large
contingents of Africans, Spanish merchants now had to acquire them in
41 Isidro Inglada against Miguel Moran regarding slave expeditions, 1 March 1819,
ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, first section, leg. 260, no 1; Brooks, Yankee Traders, 79;
and Kiple and Higgins, "Mortality Caused by Dehydration," 425. B.K. Drake does not
find a correlation between seasonality of departure and climatic considerations with
Liverpool-based slave voyages. Utilizing four separate analyses of voyages from
Liverpool to Africa in the years 1791-1794, 1798, 1799, and 1804-1807, Drake
demonstrates that between 48-60 percent of all voyages left during the defined wet
season, implying that the season of departure played a minimal role in the planning of
Liverpool slave expeditions. Drake, "The Liverpool-African Voyage," 130-32.
42 Francisco de Paula Moreno de Mora substantiating the death of 52 slaves on the
schooner Restauradora originating from the coast of Africa, 21 February 1819, ANC,
Tribunal de Comercio, leg. 287, no. 4. For a description of the effects of dysentery on
slaves during the Middle Passage and a discussion of the varieties of this ailment, see
R.B. Sheridan, "The Guinea Surgeons on the Middle Passage: The Provision of
Medical Services in the British Slave Trade," The International Journal of African
Historical Studies 14:4 (1981):3-4.
a
244 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORlCAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
groups of less than ten. Sailing the entire coast to purchase slaves
gradually was not uncommon, but such an inefficient method prompted
noticeable shipping delays.43 Par example, the brigantines Anti/ope and.
Noticioso traveled the African coast for six months, each purchasing
approximately two hundred slaves. Captain Moran counted thirty-three
"major vessels" waiting for slaves in the Rio Pongo during this time.
On these new commercial circumstances, Moran remarked: "I am
convinced that this voyage will be exceedingly long and take no
comfort in saying that the [slave] cargo has reached its upper limit. II
Moran purchased a total of sixty-one slaves in just over a three-month
period. His previous five expeditions for the House of Inglada averaged
552 slaves per voyage. As supplies of slaves fluctuated on the African
coast in the late 1810s, slave factors proved to be highly valuable
contacts.
44
Another facet influencing the growth of any Cuban firm was its
degree of association with foreign intermediaries on the African
continent.
45
While access to national slave factories may have increased
the profitability of the Spanish slave trade in the long run, merchants
adapted to logistical and spatial shortcomings of the 1810s by dealing
with foreign slave factors directly. In 1816, for example, Juan, Antonio
and Jose O'Parrill, descendants of Ricardo O'Farrill y O'Daly, an
eighteenth-century slave merchant, formed a company with Jacob
Faber, an American, and a Mr. Goss, an Englishman, for the purpose of
directly importing African slaves to Havana.
46
Both Faber and Goss
43 Ramon de Bustillo and Mariam de Mendive accrediting insurance losses as a result
of ship seizures, 23 October 1815,23 May 1816, and 23 April 1818, ANC, Tribunal de
Comercio, leg. 32, no. 10.
44 Isidro Inglada against Miguel Moran regarding slave expeditions, I March 1819
and 8 November 1821, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, first section, leg. 260, no. 1.
45 Joan Fayer, "African Interpreters in the Atlantic Slave Trade," Anthropological
Linguistics 45:3 (2003):284, 286, 288; and Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson,
"Trust, Pawnship, and Atlantic History: The Institutional Foundations of the Old
Calabar Slave Trade," The American Historical Review 104:2 (1999):334-36.
46 For a genealogical history of the O'Farrill clan in Cuba, see Francisco Xavier de
Santa Cruz y Mallen, conde de San Juan de Jaruco, Historia defamilias cubanas (La
Habana: Editorial Hercules, 1942), 3:334-49. Ricardo O'Farrill's involvement in the
illicit slave trade is often celebrated by Cuban historians but details of his career and
contributions are few. Jose Luciano Franco, Comercio clandestino, 22. For statistics on
Havana slave imports in the eighteenth century, see Colin A. Palmer, Human Cargoes:
The British Slave Trade to Spanish America, 1700-1739 (Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 1981), 104-06.
p
JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 245
were seasoned traders with well-established social and economic ties to
African slave traders at Gallinas River, Sierra Leone.
47
Faber and Goss owned slave factories in Rio Pongo, near
Guinea, and maintained active personal relationships with two local
African leaders, Charles and William Gomez, sons of a Portuguese
slave trader. Biracial and multi-cultural, both Charles and William were
educated in England and were fluent in three languages, in many ways
following the classic career pattern of African intermediaries. Faber
and Goss benefited handsomely from socio-political unrest in western
Africa and transmitted their good fortune to their associates in the
Americas.
48
Commercial networks with African slave factors increased
efficiency and profitability for Cuban firms because direct contact with
foreign merchants brought financiers increased accountability and
detailed market information. Trust was at a premium at this juncture
because the opportunity for embezzlement was relatively high. Indeed,
the O'Farrills quickly discovered the penalties of dealing with unproven
factors on the African coast.
Despite providing Faber with 34,082 pesos worth of
merchandise to exchange for slaves, the enterprise failed to yield steady
returns for the O'Farrills. Initially, the thirty- to ninety-day shipping
delays engendered concern among the O'Farrills, but their anxieties
were mollified as slaves started trickling into Havana. However, as the
two-year association with Faber matured, the O'Farrills' earlier
apprehensions were validated. The 01Farrills discovered that Faber had
sold their slave shipments to other traders. Based on an investigation of
the company's financial records, the Havana Merchant Tribunal
concluded that Faber embezzled well over 100,000 pesos and 108
slaves.
49
The fact that the incident illustrates the failure of a Cuban firm
in the Atlantic slave trade is incidental. More importantly, this episode
exemplifies that as Cubans increasingly financed direct voyages to
47 Jacobo Faber and Martin Zavala regarding the founding of a slave factory (est.
1816), [date illegible] 1827, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, leg. 467, no. 3.
48 George Howland, "Captain George Howland's Voyage to West Africa," in New
England Merchants in Africa: A History Through Documents, 1802 to 1865, ed.
Norman R. Bennett and George E. Brooks (Brookline, Mass.: Boston University Press,
1965),87.
49 Jacobo Faber and Martin Zavala regarding the founding of a slave factory (est.
1816), [date illegible] 1827, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, leg. 467, no. 3; Jacobo Faber
and Martin Zavala regarding accounts and insolvency of the former, ANC, Tribunal de
Comercio, leg. 166, no. 9, fols. 1-3; and Jacobo Faber and Martin Zavala as partners of
a firm involved in the slave trade, ANC, Reales Cedulas y Ordenes, leg. 83, no. 45, fol.
1.
246 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
Africa, the commercial and social ties between merchants on both sides
of the Atlantic expanded as well.
Despite economic bottlenecks in the 18l0s, Havana slave
merchants did manage to master many of the commercial techniques
that made their Liverpool counterparts so successful in the Atlantic
world during the eighteenth century. While smaller slave merchants
continued investing in slaving expeditions, individuals or firms such as
Cuesta Manzanal y Hermano, the O'Farrills, the Lombillos, Joaquin
G6mez, and Pablo Sarna occupied extensive segments of the Cuban
slave trade by integrating other related commercial enterprises. In
essence, these individuals represented the highest tier of Cuban
merchants. Although still directly involved in the slave trade late in
their lives, they nevertheless reached a level in their careers where it
was no longer necessary to deal personally with slaves. At this juncture,
these merchants served as administrators or directors who facilitated
and financed almost every aspect of the Atlantic sugar commercial
complex. As directors of merchant houses, they offered a multitude of
services which were directly or indirectly related to the slave trade,
including purchasing vessels, provisioning ships, paying customs
officials, exporting sugar, leasing royal slave barracks, providing credit
for domestic slave purchases, and financing sugar mills.50
The Spanish Commercial Codes referred to these individuals as
ship owners or provisions merchants (armadores); however, such titles
were not commonly used through the 1820s. People serving multiple
economic and social functions still referred to themselves generically as
"merchants." While ship owning among larger merchants was not
uncommon, ownership was incidental to the aforementioned interests
and activities. Strategies of vertical integration on the Atlantic side of
the business were not unusual, but they involved providing services
that supplemented shipping cargo such as ship brokering, consignment,
and stevedoring. The merchant in charge, or the merchant house he
directed, was responsible for hiring a captain and crew, a doctor, and
interpreters, as well as advancing their salaries. Still, it was not
uncommon for a merchant house to hire a captain and his ship on a
consignment basis. Doing so insulated the company from additional
costs and risks, such as slave shortages on the African coast and the
50 Antonio Bocalandro requesting that Joaquin Gomez sunender accounting books
relating to Bocalandro's sugar mill, 29 August 1824, 2 September 1824, 4 September
1824, 6 September 1824, 25 November 1824, and 2 December 1824, ANC,
Escribanias, Ponton, leg. 143, no. 7.
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JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 247
growing threat of capture and condemnation by the British Navy after
1817.
51
Certainly, the notoriety that larger slave merchants achieved
late in their careers implies a highly specialized field; however, the
slave trade remained interconnected with other related commercial
activities such as buying and selling sugar and insuring African
expeditions.
Incorporated in 1795, the Maritime Insurance Company of Havana
(MICH) was part of a burgeoning Cuban commercial and financial
infrastructure utilized by merchants to gradually consolidate the sugar
and slave industries by the 1820s.
52
The company's charter, like other
European insurance firms of the period, indemnified against the usual
perils of the seas including fire, thieves, and pirates, as well as seizures
and restraints from friends and enemies. Typical coverage included the
total loss of the vessel, goods, freight, and current market value of
slaves.
53
Bolstering its business portfolio beyond the port of Havana,
the company dispatched agents to several Spanish ports including
Cadiz, Barcelona, Santander, Coruna, Tenerife, Veracruz, New
Orleans, Cartagena, and Buenos Aires.
54
51 One of the main points of contention between Isidro Inglada and Miguel Moran
was determining whether the latter was an equal partner in the finn or whether the
former hired him on a consignment basis, The outcome of the decision determined the
monetary value each individual would collect from the slaving expedition. Isidro
Inglada against Miguel Moran regarding slave expeditions, 30 October 1821 and 8
November 1821, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, first section, leg. 260, no. 1.
52 Turnbull notes that while initially conceived by Cuban slave merchants as a
parallel commercial service, MICH eventually diversified its portfolio. David Turnbull,
Travels in the West, Cuba: With Notices of Porto Rico, and the Slave Trade (London:
Printed for Longman, Onne, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1840), 141. For MICH
losses to the British abolitionist campaign, see Ramon de Bustillo and Mariam de
Mendive accrediting insurance losses as a result of ship seizures, 23 October 1815, 24
October 1815,3 February 1816,5 March 1816, and 23 April 1818, ANC, Tribunal de
Comercio, leg. 32, no. 10.
53 A,D.M. Forte, "Marine Insurance and Risk Distribution in Scotland before 1800,"
Law and History Review 5:2 (1987):393-412; Solomon Huebner, "The Development
and Present Status of Marine Insurance in the United States," Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science 26 (1905):241-72; and John G. Clark, "Marine
Insurance in Eighteenth-Century La Rochelle," French Historical Studies 10:4
(1978):572-98. For Cuban examples of qualification and justification of anticipated
profits attributed to total losses of slave cargo for insurance purposes, see Jaime
Vilardebo y Ferrer substantiating and qualifying losses on a slave expedition to Africa,
15 November 1820, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, leg. 513, no. 29; and Yriarte, Lasa,
and Company ascertaining certain information regarding slave values in 1814, [date
illegible] 1818, ANC, Tribunal de Comercio, leg. 260, no. 5.
54 Calendario manual y gufa deforasteros de la Isla de Cuba para el ano de 1795
(Havana: la Imprenta de la Capitanla General, 1795), 69.
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248 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
In the early 1800s, the primary office and meeting place of MICH
was the home of Mariano Carbo, located near the commercial district
of Havana. For Carbo, underwriting voyages formed one of many
commercial functions he performed in Cuba. In addition to his
underwriting and slaving activities, he owned two of the largest sugar
mills in western Cuba. 55 This career pattern was not unlike many of the
other investors in MICH who described themselves as either
hacendados or merchants but at times possessed facets of each social
type. The board of directors included Joseph Manuel Lopez, Gabriel
Raymundo de Azacarte, Bonifacio Larrifiaga, Bernabe Martinez de
Pinillos, and Pedro Diago; all were prominent members of Cuban
society and were involved in a number of sugar commercial activities
such as slave imports, financing plantations, or landowning. Indeed, the
structure and organization of MICH reflects the lack of specialization
in Spanish commerce in the early nineteenth century. 56
The list of common investors was a veritable "who's who" of
Cuban society at the tum of the nineteenth century. Aside from the
usual counts and countesses, the individuals represented a cross-section
of the different social groups within the sugar mill complex, including
petty merchants, merchant bankers, established import-export firms,
slave factors, slave merchants, the patrician landed elite, and newly-
established peninsulars, such as Cuesta y Manzanal. In essence, MICH
included almost every major type of individual in Cuban slave society,
with the obvious exception of slaves. While not organized in the classic
corporate structure, MICH provided an important venue for the
collection and dissemination of information related to shipping and
commerce and served as a vital nexus for social and economic
associations in Cuban slave society. 57
Slave merchants were also part of a larger financial network that
invested heavily in the domestic sugar industry. As slave merchants
gained capital, many became merchant bankers. Merchant bankers
were critical components in the development of the Cuban sugar
55 Meeting regarding sugar and debts between Mariano Carbo and Multra, Carbonell,
and Company, 9 April 1799,31 May 1799, 14 June 1799, and 15 June 1799, ANC,
Tribunal de Comercio, leg. 116, no. 12.
56 Compania de Seguros Maritimos, establecida en la ciudad de la Havana en 1795,
Jose Marti Cuban National Library; and Jesus Maria Valdaliso, "The Rise of Specialist
Firms in Spanish Shipping and Their Strategies of Growth, 1860 to 1930," Business
History Review 74:2 (2000):267-300.
57 Compania de Seguros Maritimos, establecida en la Giudad de la Havana en 1795,
Jose Marti Cuban National Library.
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JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 249
industry because rapid economic growth outpaced the expansion of
formal banking institutions.
58
Throughout the first decades of the
nineteenth century, merchant houses based in Havana developed and
maintained financial links with hacendados in rural Cuba. Among the
few members in Cuban society with surplus liquid capital, slave
merchants positioned themselves as the primary creditors of sugar
mills. The refacci6n contracts between merchants and hacendados
included financing for almost every aspect of the sugar production
process. Simpler agreements consisted of direct loans permitting
hacendados ultimate discretion in the credit's disbursement. Typically,
however, sugar contracts consisted of advances against future crops
including specific stipulations addressing the quantity and quality of
sugar and agreements on final market prices. Far more complex
arrangements included supplying hacendados with agricultural tools,
machinery, clothing, food, and slaves for one or several succeeding
harvests. 59
As mediators between domestic and world markets, Cuban
merchants acquired the necessary knowledge to exploit the price
fluctuations through sugar mill contracts.
60
The provision of
comprehensive goods and services oftentimes compounded the roles of
merchant bankers, transforming them into de facto administrators or
trustees of the sugar mills under contract. While not necessarily in
charge of the day-to-day operations of the sugar mill, their overarching
responsibilities placed merchant bankers in positions of significant
influence over their clients, especially those with smaller and medium-
sized sugar mills. By serving as a broker between hacendados,
suppliers, and sugar exporters, the merchant banker wielded significant
58 The first Royal Bank of Ferdinand VII was not established in Havana until 1827;
however, its value as a public lending institution remains in question. Primarily
discounting promissory notes and issuing bills of exchange, the bank's three-month
credit terms and a low ceiling on loans severely limited its usefulness to hacendados
who required financing for a year or more. The harvest season for sugar lasted nine
months and much longer for coffee; thus, a three-month loan was inadequate for most
planters. Turnbull, Travels in the West, 96-98. The Spanish Bank of Havana, the
Society of Industrial Credit, and the Society of Territorial Cuban Credit were
established in 1854, 1856, and 1857, respectively. Jacobo Pezuela, Diccionario
geogrijico, estadfstico, historico de la isla de Cuba (Madrid: Impr. del Estab. de
Mellado, 1863),3:317-33.
59 Documents relating to the sale of the sugar mill "San Jose to Bonifacio Gonzalez
Larrinaga," 7 February 1804, 30 July 1814, 3 October 1814, and 25 September 1834,
ANC, Escribanias, Guerra, leg. 500, no. 6564, doc. no. 6, no. 9.
60 Creditor meetings regarding debts incurred by Nicolas de Menive, July 1824, 4
November 1824, and 16 August 1824, ANC, Escribanias, Daumy, leg. 804, no. 1.
250 COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW SUMMER 2006
economic influence over his clients. Ultimately, the manipulation of
credit structures enabled merchant bankers to dispossess landowners of
their sugar mills.
61
As their careers developed, many slave merchants
followed a pattern of becoming merchant bankers and eventually
landowners themselves. The objective among merchants of increasing
their social significance vis-a-vis patrician hacendados partially
explains the aforementioned development. However, the merchant
acquisition of land also formed part of the initial process of vertical
integration or, for that matter, the result of simple investments of
I
. 1
62
surp us capIta.
Economic growth driven by rapid expansion in international trade,
particularly in sugar exports, transformed the fortunes of many
individuals on the island. However, since plantation owners, regardless
of the size of their sugar mills, relied on merchant bankers for a steady
influx of slaves, goods, services, and financing, the social influence
held by Cuban merchants increased disproportionately. With such
comprehensive roles, "slave merchants"-now turned into merchant
bankers-became the most dynamic social group of the Cuban
economy, rapidly acquiring wealth, privilege, and status.
Within a generation, Cuban slave merchants mastered and
improved the commercial techniques utilized by British and American
slave merchants in the Atlantic world. Slave merchants however, not
only maintained an Atlantic perspective but also acted within the
imperial system by investing their slave trade profits domestically.
Cuban slave merchants established a viable and competitive economic
presence on the island. As a result of executing almost every aspect of
the slave trade, including provisioning, insurance, and finance, Cuban
merchants developed a commercial and financial infrastructure in
Havana that propelled the island's economic growth. By and large,
Cuban merchants abandoned mercantilist philosophies and the
commercial monopolies in favor of practical-knowledge exchanges
with their Atlantic counterparts. Indeed, cooperation between Cuban
slave merchants and French privateers, as exemplified in the Dos
Hermanos incident, was not isolated but rather part of a larger
commercial network that merchants constructed in the 1790s. Lacking
61 Administration of the sugar mill "San Francisco," 30 June 1832, ANC, Audiencia
de La Habana, leg. 267, no. 11.
62 After Carbo's bankruptcy proceedings, Ramon Hano y Vega purchased the sugar
mill "Jestls Nazareno," in the early nineteenth century and his cousin, Joaquin G6mez,
subsequently acquired "San Ignacio" several years later. Liquidation of the House of
Mira Pie and Company, 4 March 1830, ANC, Escribanias, Pont6n, leg. 162, no. 14.
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JOSE GUADALUPE ORTEGA 251
the experience of their French, English, and American counterparts,
Cuban merchants utilized ad hoc relationships to establish a
competitive commercial foothold in the Atlantic slave trade.