Cuban Slave Trade 1790-1843

Tome LXII Nos 226-227

I er et 2e trimestres 1975

Publiee avec le concours Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

The Cuban Slave Trade in a Period of Transition, 1790-1843, par Herbert S. KLEIN.

Societe Fran~aise d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer

The Cuban Slave Trade

in a Period of Transition, 1790-1843

by

HERBERT S. KLEIN

Among the oldest and most varied of the major slave trades to America was the African Slave trade to Cuba. Going back to the earliest days of the settlement of the island in the 16th century, the Cuban trade lasted longer than any other major American slave trade and was not effectively terminated until the mid-1860's. During this three hundred and fifty year period the trade underwent constant change, reflecting the fundamental shifts in the basis of the Cuban economy.

Until Cuba emerged as a major plantation export economy at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, it was essentially a marginal economy within the American empire of Spain. In the first fifty years after the Spanish Conquest of 1511, placer gold mining Was the primary industry, and the Amerindian population of Cuba and the surrounding islands was the prime source of labor. But the gold deposits soon were exhausted and the Amerindian population destroyed, so that the economy drifted into a general cattle and mixed farming economy. It was only its choice location as a major entrepot for New World shipping and as a key defensive position in the Caribbean empire of Spain that revitalized the Cuban economy from the 1650's to the 18th century.-

The creation of a major garrison port at Havana and the massive use of the city as a provisioning site for outbound shipping provided the island's interior with important markets for its food. At the same time the slow growth of a small freeholders tobacco economy and a thriving lumber industry added to the general economic growth of the island. Although African slaves were constantly imported into the island, the economy as a whole did not produce a surplus sufficient to finance the major importation of slave labor, and the

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prime labor pool remained free persons of color and whites. Black slave laborers could be found everywhere on the island, but they were primarily concentrated in the large urban centers of Havana and Santiago de Cuba employed either as skilled artisans or domestics. The only major use of slave labor outside these areas was in the important construction and shipbuilding industries which were kept busy especially in the 18th century turning Havana into one of the key shipping and fortress centers of the New World.

Reflecting this essentially marginal economy - at least in terms of the European markets - was the type of slave trade going to the island. Throughout this period, Cuba was a minor market in the general Caribbean trade, receiving only part of its African slaves in direct shipments from Africa. An important part of its slave laborers were either bozales (recent African arrivals) coming from Africa via the other West Indian islands, or were ladino (Christian or acculturated) slaves brought in small lots by general merchants who only engaged in the slave trade as a minor activity. Equally, this largely intraCaribbean trade and even the minor Africa to Cuba slave trade was in the hands of foreign nationals. First the Flemish and Dutch in the 16th and early 17th centuries dominated the Cuban slave trade. These were followed by the French and English, with the Cubans and Spaniards playing only a minor role.

But the nature of this relatively small slave trade changed dramatically at the end of the 18th century. For at this point in time Cuba changed from a relatively mixed agrarian economy with a minor export trade in tobacco and lumber, to one of the world's great plant ation regions. The combined impact of Bourbon economic reforms and subsidization, along with the decline of the British islands and the destruction of Saint Domingue led to the growth of a coffee and sugar export economy of major proportions. To further that growth the government deliberately encouraged the expansion of the African slave trade to Cuba. Aside from providing tax incentives to Cuban planters and mill owner,s, the Bourbon monarchy finally ended the monopoly contract, or asiento system, and permitted unlimited free access of all foreign nationals into the Spanish American slave trade 1•

The Free . Slave Trade Law of 1789 was to prove a vital factor in aiding the massive entree of Black slaves into the Cuban economy. It was also because of this law, that the royal naval officials of the port of Havana began collecting the shipping statistics upon which the major portion of this survey of the· Cuban slave trade is based. Beginning

1 . The standard surveys of t he 'colonia l economy are by Julio L E RivEREND BnusoNE. See his Los origenes de la economia cubana (1510-1600), Mexico, 1945 ; and Historia economica de Cuba 2nd. ed ., Havana, 1965.

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in late 1789, but especially in the early months of 1790, the Cuban port officials collected information on the age and sex of all slaves entering the port of Havana as well as the names and nationalities of all ships engaging in the trade. Fortunately, the bulk of these monthly reports have been preserved in the Archivo General de lndias (A.G.I.) in Spain and from this source we are able to glimpse both the pre-plantation development slave trade, as well as the full scale massive trade which dominated the 19th century.

Before undertaking the analysis of these slave trade figures some comments on the pre-existent published statistics are worth mentioning. As can be seen in Table 1, the annual totals for slave importations published by Humboldt are essentially correct. Since Humboldt seems to have had direct access to the same lists which were event ually forwarded to Spain and now reside in the Archivo General de lndias, it is not surprising that the trends in the two lists are identical with the difference of only a few hundred occurring in any given year. I would stress that where the AGI totals are less than Humboldt's, this is due invariably to missing months in the collection of port registers for that ·year. At the same time, when the numbers are slightly higher than Humboldt's this may be due to late additions in the registers sent to Spain which were not listed in the original Havana registers.

In attempting to discern a general trend in the thirty years of the slave trade revealed by these port registers, it is evident that the Cuban slave trade experienced almost constant growth from 1790-1820. Although the trade for t he first five years began slowly, especially in relation to the exportation of sugar , by t he period of world peace in 1800-1803, it moved into a period of growth even more rapid than that of sugar. Thus while sugar exports increased over 147 % between 1790 and 1819, slave importat ions climbed 578 % in this same period. This would suggest, discounting for the moment tho crises of t ho Napoleonic Wars, that in the initial years t here was a slavo lnl>O t' sup ply on the.island which could be shifted into t he expanding coll'oo nnd Hngor· plantations. But once th.ese plantation crops were in full ox pllllHiou, they produced a seemingly insatiable demand for slaves tlw t wn only frustrated by non-economic externalities such as war ond in to t·national diplomacy. That the foreign traders recognized tho potentialities of this new market is indicated by the fact tha t all the mnjor world slave trading nations (except Portugal in these first years) almost immediately entered the Cuban slave market and rapidly began to expand t heir participation in the trade.

In analyzing the participation of these foreign and national merchants in t he Cuban slave trade over time, one of the most salient features to be noted is the enormous impact non-economic and ext er-

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HERBERT S. KLEIN

TABLE 1. - Sugar Exports from the Port of Ha~ana and Humboldt and Archi~o General de lndias Estimates of Sla~e Imports into Ha~ana, 1786-1823.

Year Sugar Exports (boxes of sugar) a.

1786 63,274 1787 61,245 1788 69,221 1789 69,125 1790 77,896 1791 85,014 1792 72,854 1793 87,970 1794 103,629 1795 70,437 1796 120,374 1797 118,066 1798 134,872 1799 165,602 1800 142,097 1801 159,841 1802 204,404 1803 158,073 1804 193,955 1805 174,555 1806 156,510 1807 181,272 1808 125,875 1809 238,842 1810 186,672 1811 est. 206,487 1812 est. 206,487 1813 est. 206,487 1814 est. 206,487 1815 214,111 1816 200,487 1817 217,076 1818 207,378 1819 192,743 1820 215,593 1821 . 236,669 1822 261,795 1823 300,211

Slave Imports Archivo General According to de Indias

Humboldt Figures

2,534 8,498 8,528 3,777 4,164 5,832 5,711 4,452 2,001 4,919 4,145 1,659

13,832 9,671 8,923 4,999 4,395 2,565 1,607 1,162 6,672 6,349 6,081 4,770 4,321 9,111

17,737 25,841 19,902 17,194 15,147

6,415

*4,797b 8,498 8,538

*2,807 *4,012 5,902

*4,007 *4,440 *1,782 *4,497 *2,018 *1,659 13,785 9,665 8,641

*4,991 *3,932 2,569

*1,013 * 988 6,672

*5,749 *3,134 *2,827 *1,780 *6,783 11,533

*23,929 *14,498

*1,356 * 536

...

THE CUBAN SLAVE TRADE, 1790-1843

Source : For the sugar statistics and slave imports to 1819, see Alexander von HuMBOLDT, Ensayo politico sobre la isla de Cuba, Havana, 1960 ed., p. 205-206. For the slave imports for 1820-1821 I have used Hubert H. S. ArMEs, A History of Slavery in Cuba, New York, 1907, p. 269. I assume that in this listing Aimes accidentally reversed the figures for 1819 and 1820, since in all other respects his figures up to that date are identical to Humboldt. The archival data for the Hayana slave trade will be found in Archivo General de Indias (Sevilla), Audiencia de Santo , Domingo, legajo 2207.

a. One box (or caja) of sugar weighed 16 arrobas, or just over 183 kg. HuMBOLDT, Ensayo politico, p. 208, n. 2.

b An asterisk before the annual figure indicates that this is_ an incomplete year, with anywhere from one to eleven months missing.

nal factors had on the course of the trade. The impact of the Napoleonic Wars are evident in the history of the English and French participation in the Cuban slave trade. The disruption of their shipping because of war and its renewal in the short periods of peace are starkly revealed in the annual importation figures. Equally, the normal participation of even the neutral traders who were immune to most of the fighting in Europe and America, was seriously affected by the British drive to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. The North American legal participation ends with the Constitutional prohibitions of 1808, while the Danish and English terminate their involvement just a few years prior to the end of the European wars.

Thus by 1808, and even sometime before, the Cuban slave trade became an almost exclusively Iberian trade, predominantly Spanish and with as yet a minor participation of the Portuguese. Also, it is evident that by the Peace of Amiens (1802) long term structural changes had begun. By that date the trade can be considered to have become the modern 19th century trade. It was only the impact of the last stages of the E1,uopean wars which prevented this trend from fully developing. Only from 1809, when Great Britain can be said to have effectively dominated the sea lanes, was this secular increase in average numbers of slaves carried again reasserted in response to normal market conditions 2.

2. It is worth noting as well, that the increased volume of slave arrivals was accompanied both by a decrease in the number of ships (because of the increase in average number carried) and by a decrease in the ratio of slave ships to total shipping arriving in the port of Havana. Because of this increased trade accompanying the growth of plantation crop exports, slave ships declined from a high of 28% (out of 427 ships arrivals- though the 86 foreign slavers accounted for 89% of all incoming foreign shipping, as opposed to 10 % of the incoming Spaniards being slavers) in 1792, to a low of 4% in 1816 (out of 1,114 arrivals, of which slavers made up 2% of entering foreigners and 6% of entering Spanish vessels). The general Havana shipping statistics are contained in Archivo General de Indias, Audiencia de Santo Domingo, legajo, 1835, " Estado en que se manifi.esta el numero de embarcaciones mercantes nacionales e extrangeros ... que han entrado en el Puerto de Havana des de el a no 1788 basta el proximo pasado de 1815 ... " [1816].

TABLE 2. - Average Number of Africans Carried by Nationality of Slavers, 1790-1820 (number of ships in parentheses).

Year Spain U.S.A. England Denmark France Portugal

General Average •of Arrival All Nations a.

1790 40.4 (28) 89.8 (6) 46.0 {5) 86.0 (3) 142.5 (2) 82.7 (58)

1791 63.5 (21) 32.9 (23) 134.7 (26) 139.2 (18) 89.5 (95)

1792 85.2 (32) 51.8 (46) 47.9 (22) 182.0 (12) 72.4 (118)

1793 34.1 (15) 39.5 (30) 55.9 (19) 48.0 (1) 43.2 (65)

1794 39.3 (24) 39.8 (50) 163.8 (6) 44.5 (2) 48.3 (83)

1795 81.0 (29) 26.9 (38) 164.3 (12) 35.2 (5) 169.5 (2) 67.8 (87)

1796 69.8 (16) 20.6 (69) 287.6 (5) 10.0 (3) 43.1 (93)

1797 27.6 (111) 51.2 (25) 32.4 (137)

1798 110.0 (2) 26.6 (28) 30.0 (21) 34.3 (52)

1799 58.0 (1) 68.7 (45) 45.2 (28) 60.0 (75)

1800 2.5 (2) 46.1 (21) 47.5 (22) 44.8 (45)

1801 72.9 (7) 68.4 (15) 69.1 (24)

1802 49.3 (14) 35.0 (69) 194.1 (38) 107.6 (27) 68.0 (3) 90.7 (152)

1803 128.0 (9) 49.9 (49) 154.3 (27) 106.0 (12) 229.0 (2) 94.8 (102)

1804 15.0 (2) 26.6 (70) 196.2 (26) 80.6 (15) 72.6 (119)

1805 54.6 (73) 128.8 (5) 62.4 (80)

1806 77.6 (45) 88.0 (5) 78.6 (50)

1807 42.7 (55) 89.5 (2) 44.3 (58)

1808 72.4 (14) .. .,. 72.4 (14)

1809 150.7 (6) 141.1 (7}

1810 194.4 (26) 103.0 (1) 215.5 (6) 175.6 (38)

1811 201.4 (23) 3.0 (1) 226.0 (4) 191.6 (30)

1812 150.3 (20) 64.0 (2) ' 142.5 (22)

1813 172.3 (15) 243.0 (1) 176.7 (16)

1814 136.8 (12) 138.0 (1) 136.9 (13)

1815 218.3 (27) 320.0 (1) 254.5 (2) 218.8 (31)

1816 236.9 (74) ' 236.9 (74) 1817 276.0 (85) 232.5 (2) 275.0 (87) 1818 294.2 (49) 80.0 (1) 290.0 (50) 1819 226.0 (6) 226.0 (6) 1820 186.0 (2) 18.77 (3)

GENERAL AvERAGE 172.5 41.6 144.5 65.4 156.7 ' 209.0 97.3

ToTAL SHIPS (540) (853) (186) (191) (38) (19) (1884)

STANDARD DEVIATION 134.4 56.0 146.4 64.5 144.7 104.5 116.1

Total Slaves 93,125 35,473 26,883 12,501 5,956 3,971 183,338

Source : Archivo General de Indias (Sevilla), Audiencia de Santo Domingo. legajo 2207. Unless otherwise indicated, all subsequent tables are based on this source.

a This final General Average for all nations total includ~s data on 57 ships carrying 5,429 slaves, of which 16 ships were unknown as to specific nation, and the rest divided up among 5 smaller trading nations,. ranging from 20 ships beloDging to Sweden to 1 ship for the port of Bremen. In subsequent tables, most calculations will be based on this. p-and to,tal which includes both unknown as to nationality as well as the smaller traders, unles~ Q~4~:rwi~~ .indicated.

HERBERT S. KLEIN

Equally evident from an analysis of this general trade data is the changing participation of the different nationals in the slave trade. Given the fact that the Cuban trade evolved from a complex intraCaribbean as well as a direct African movement, to an almost exclusively African trade, it was inevitable that the major supplying nations would also change their participation in · the trade. Thus in the shipping of Denmark, England and Spain, there was a move from small shipments of African slaves to ever larger numbers carried as the trade moved into the first decade of the 19th century. There were of course nations like France and Portugal which from the beginnings of their participation in the trade seemed to have concentrated on large and seemingly direct importations of slaves from Africa. At the opposite end of the spectrum from these states, was of course, the United States, which from the earliest period till the end of its participation concentrated primarily on smaller shipments of slaves largely within the context of a general Caribbean and American trade 3 •

The impression of the existence of these trends is re-enforced when we proceed to break down the participation of these nationals in terms of the number of slaves they carried. As can be seen in table 3, fully 70% of United States ships carried 50 slaves or less, as compared to only 5 % for Portugal at the other extreme. The one surprising feature revealed by this table is the relatively low participation of Spanish vessels at this level. Spain had even fewer vessels in this 50 slaves or less category than did France, making it the second highest in overall average carried. Prior to 1809, however, its average number of slaves carried per voyage was quite low and its interest in its own national trade was still relatively limited. After 1809, this changed greatly and Spain achieved both major participation in the trade and became oriented primarily toward African shipments. ·

That I am equating large numbers carried with primarily African shipments and small numbers carried with an intra-Caribbean trade is based on several assumptions. The first is that the shipping used in both these routes was quite similar and could have been used to bring in larger or smaller numbers of slaves as the case might be. In analyzing the ships involved in the slave trade to Havana between 1790 and 1820, it is evident that only four types of vessels predominated : ·the brig (bergantin), the sloop (balandra), the schooner (goleta) and the frigate (fragata). Together these ships accounted for 97% of the total shipping involved. Each of these ships types can be found participating in all three trades, carrying from the smallest

3. Much of my previous findings on the intra-Caribbean trade are summarized in Herbert S. KLEIN, "Slaves and Shipping in 18th Century Virginia ", J. Interdisciplinary Hist., vol. 3 (Winter, 1975), pp. 383-l.t11.

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HERBERT S. KLEIN

to the largest number of slaves. Since these designations concern the number of masts, the design of sails and the types of riggings, they can, and were often combined with quite different ranges of tonnage per vessel. I~ this particular period most brigs and frigates were concentrated in the African trade, with sloops most concerned with the intra-Caribbean route. But each of these vessel types could be found in all three routes. Thus the fact that less slaves were carried for a particular vessel had little to do with its carrying capacity, but was more related to the type of trade it was engaged in.

Another part of the argument supporting the idea of distinctive routes within the slave trade to Cuba is the evidence of a limited sample of the trade in 1790 where, for the only time in these reports, the port of origin was given. It is apparent from this sample (see table 4) that there is strong evidence for all three routes, each clearly differentiated by the origins and average number of slaves carried per vessel. The example of Dominica I would propose, strongly supports the idea of a mixed, or intermediate trade using either an island as an entrepot, or of vessels coming directly from Africa with . one stop at Dominica

TABLE 4. - Ports of Origin of SlaYe Vessels arriYing in the port of H aYana between January and June of 1790.

Average Number Place of Origin Number of slaves No. of ships a of Slaves carried

per ship

Guinea 2,015 8 251 Dominica 4~ ( 4~

116 lb

Jamaica 247 10 24 (New) Providence 3~ · 832 r19 13 \ 43 Charlestown 1 St. Eustatius · 81 81

I

Total 2,847 27

General Average 105

Source : A.G.I., Santo Domingo, leg. 2207, " Estado que comprende el numero de embarcaciones ... ", dated July 1, 1790.

a As to types of vessels, in the trade to Guinea there were 5 frigates and 3 brigs. As for the intra-Caribbean .trade there were 4 brigs, 9 sloops and 6 schooners.

b There is the possibility that Dominica here is operating as an entrepot and shipping recently arrived African slaves to Cuba.

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before proceeding on to Havana. Finally, all the current evidence from the other transatlantic slave trades in the 18th and 19th centuries shows few African originated slavers carrying on average less than 200 slaves per voyage 4. ·

While it is evident from the 1790 sample that there was a sharp differentiation between the intra -Caribbean and direct African trades, the overall Cuban statistics present a rather curious middle ground. That some 16% of the ships were bringing in between 100 and 199 slaves would seem to indicate that possibly a third variant route of the trade existed,. that is a type of mixed venture. Most likely these were ships which were arriving from Africa with the intention of supplying several island markets. The fact that 65 % of these 293 middle range ships (carrying between 100 and 199 slaves) arrived before 1809, when the trade was still open with the British and French islands seems to support the thesis that these middle rank ships were leaving only a part of their slaves in Havana, having either left a part of them on another Caribbean island or dropping only a portion of their total slaves on their first stop at Havana. An alternative within this "mixed trade" was the possibility of local intra-Caribbean shipping distributing to several islands the newly arrived African slaves from one entrepot island. Several of the British islands seem to have served this purpose, and in the 1790's even Jamaica reported intra-Caribbean shipping to Havana which sometimes carried over 100 slaves per voyage 5 • Whichever the actual pattern of operation (either directly arriving African slave ships or island entrepots and the use of local shipping) I would argue that the mixed trade involved a predominantly newly arrived African slave contingent, as opposed to the exclusively intra-Caribbean trade, which handled predominantly seasoned and/or creole born slaves.

Of the three broadly defined routes, clearly the direct African shippers (carrying over 200 slaves) predominated in the long run over both other types of shippers. This predominance might have occurred earlier had it not been for the war years. For it was the African route which most suffered from the impact of the Atlantic battles. While the mixed trade route was also affected by the fortunes of war, the

4. In the 18th century the Portuguese shippers from Angola were averaging 396 slaves per vessel. Herbert S. KLEIN," The Portuguese Slave Trade from Angola in the 18th Century", J. Econ. Hist., XXXIII (1972), no. 4, p. 898; while shipments into Rio de Janeiro at the end of the century were reaching over 480 slaves per vessel. See Herbert S. KLEIN, "The Trade in African Slaves to Rio de Janeiro, 1795-1811 : estimates of mortality and patterns of voyages .», J. Afr. Hist., X (1969), no. 4, p. 538. ·

5. See e.g. the Feb.-March 1796 listings of Jamaican exports of slaves on British and Spanish vessels to Havana in Public Record Office (London), Colonial Office 140/23.

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HERBERT S. KLEIN

TABLE 5. - Number of Slave Ships Arriving in Havana by Type of Route, 1790-1820.

· ROUTES Year of Caribbean (Under Mixed African (Over Arrival 100 slaves carried) (100-199) 199 slaves carried)

1790 47 5 6 1791 74 9 12 1792 89 19 10 1793 58 5 2 1794 71 9 3 1795 73 5 9 1796 79 10 4 1797 125 10 2 1798 48 4 1799 63 10 2 1800 43 2 1801 20 4 1802 100 24 28 1803 66 18 18 1804 88 15 16 1805 59 17 4 1806 35 12 3 1807 49 9 1808 10 4 1809 3 2 2 1810 10 15 13 1811 7 12 11 1812 9 7 6 1813 4 5 7 1814 6 4 3 1815 2 13 16 1816 7 18 49 1817 6 18 63 1818 5 8 37 1819 ... 3 3 1820 1 1 1

Total Ships 1,257 297 330 Average no. of

Slaves per Ship 30.8 141.4 311.2 Standard Devia~

tion 28.6 29.5 . 93.3 Total Slaves 38,653 41,981 102,704

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impact was less. As for . the intra-Caribbean traders, these suffered the least from the European conflicts. Thus the early growth of the African trade, clearly revealed in the period of the Peace of Amiens, was stymied and it was not until after the Battle of Trafalgar and especially after final peace in 1815 that the weight of the African route was fully felt.

While there seems to be distinctions in the Cuban slave trade between routes and over time and national participation, the question of the times of voyages and the pattern of routes is not clearly defined. This ambiguous interrelationship between season of arrival and type of route was not the expected result. In my previous studies of the Portuguese slave trade, which was exclusively a direct Africa to Brazil route, a distinct seasonal pattern was evident. This variation consisted of related seasons having lower total volume of slaves, lower average numbers carried per vessel, higher mortality and longer voyages, than did other seasons over long periods of time 6 • At the same time, the 18th century Virginia slave · trade, which stands close to the Cuban trade in that it had the two major sub-streams of an African and intra-Caribbean trades, also experienced marked seasonality in both these routes. While there were some seasonal differences to be found in the three routes of the Cuban trade, these were not nearly as pronounced as those found for the much smaller mid-18th century Virginia trade. As can he seen in figure 1, which expresses this comparative variation in terms of total slaves arriving by season, the Cuban trade only mildly reflects the fluctuations in the Virginia movement. Although the mixed and African trades of Cuba showed heaviest volume during the Summer months just as occurred in both parts of the Virginia trade, the intra-Caribbean route of Cuba showed no such pattern. Equally, none of the Cuban routes showed the major decline in the Fall and especially the Winter months experienced by the Virginia trade.

The use of total volume figures in analyzing the problem of seasonality in the Cuban data, does however suffer from some serious problems. Part of the lessened impact of the ·Seasonality factor on total volume within the trade, may be due to the fact that there were 93 missing months not evenly distributed by season 7 • However, this can be controlled for by looking at the average carried figure by season, which would not be greatly affected by changes in the total volume. From such a study (as in table 6) it is evident that there is very

6. KLEIN, " The Trade in African Slaves ", p. 539 and my article " 0 tra'lfico de escravos africanos para o porto de Rio de Janeiro, 1825-1830 ", A. Hist. {Assis, Sao Paulo), V (1973), pp. 92-93.

7. The missing months were distributed as follows : 19 in Winter, 33 in Spring, 21 in Summer and 20 in Fall.

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HERBERT S. KLElN

little variation in average numbers carried in either the Caribbean or Mixed trade categories. While it is true that the number of ships · arriving in the Spring among the intra -Caribbean traders was. quite high, the average number of slaves carried in this season was identical to the lowest season in terms of total volume. As for the Mixed traders as well, there is very little variation in average carried by season.

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'-...... // '-African route of Cuba ....... _.,

_____ }~\. _____ _

I I

/ I I / ·'

I I I I

',,Mixed route of Cubo

\ Caribbean route of Cub"

\ Afdcan •oute of Vl•glnl•

West Indian route of Virginie.

Winter Spring Summer Fall

FrouRE 1.- Number of SlaYes Imported into Virginia (1727-1769) and Cuba (1790-1820) by Route and Season,

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(

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~ .J,

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' (

f ) t

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J.

I. }

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Although there appears a bit more seasonal difference in the African trade, the moderate rise in average number of slaves brought to Havana in the Fall term finds no carryover in the preceding or succeeding seasons, and finds no echo among the Mixed traders.

TABLE 6. - Average Number of Slaves Carried by Route and Season to Havana, 1790-1820 (number of ships in parentheses).

---SEASON

Route Winter Spring Summer Fall Total a.

Caribbean 32.1 (308) 29.1 (418) (under 100)

33.4 {282) 29.1 (244) 30.8 (1252)

Mixed 135.8 {69) 144.9 {81) 141.6 (87) 141.9 (58) 141.2 (295) (100-199)

African 306.7 (93) 311.7 (67) 303.9 (97) 325.2 (70) 310.8 (327) (over 199)

GENERAL AvERAGE 101.6 79.2 109.9 102.4 97.1

ToTAL SniPS (470) (566) (466) (372) (1874)

a. There were 10 ships carrying 1,451 slaves whose month of arrival was unknown.

This puzzling lack of seasonal variation may be related to either the sailing conditions of the Africa to Cuba route, or possibly to a much more varied selectivity of African sources for this trade. While the Portuguese trade to Brazil came primarily from Guinea, Angola and Mozambique, the African sources used by the ships coming to Cuba (and this includes the Portuguese traders as well) were relatively evenly spread throughout the entire West coast of Africa. Unfortunately there is no data given on origins in the official port registers of the 1790-1820 period. However, British consular reports on post-1820 shipping bringing slaves to all the ports of Cuba did provide the port of origin in some 82 cases. As can be seen in table 8, the origins of the ·African sl~ves were rather evenly distributed. This same pattern may also have occurred earlier. Though the Cuban trade may have been rather unusual for the 19th century in this broad selectivity, it is worth noting that there was a striking similarity between this trade and the Portuguese to Brazil trades in that the East African ports consistently had much higher average, numbers of slaves carried than the West African shippers 8 • Nevertheless, in the resulting lack of

8. By the 1820's the East African ships were carrying nearly 560 slaves per vessel, a figure 37% more than the ships carrying slaves from Angola. This was a reversal

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HERBERT S. KLEIN

seasonality, the Cuban slave trade can be considered somewhat unique from the other lar~e scale trades to America.

TABLE 7. - AYerage Number of SlaYes ArriYed from Regions of Africa to all Ports of Cuba, 1820-1843 (number of ships in parentheses).

Islands & Regions Portugal a Spain Total b

of Africa All Nations

Sao Tome Island 483.2 (4) 317.0 (1) 450.0 (5) Principe Island 334.8 (5) 502.5 (2) 382.7 (7) Guinea & Sierra Leone 283.0 (2) 222.0 (8) 231.1 (11) Windward Coast ... 78.0 (1) 78.0 (1) Gold Coast 477.0 (2) ... 477.0 (2) Bight of Benin 180.0 (1) 353.6 (9) 336.2 (10) Bight of Biafra ... 319.4 (8) 313.1 (9) Congo c 391.5 (4) 392.7 (3) 392.0 (7) Angola 303.9 (8) 273.0 (5) 296.9 (19) East Africa 596.7 (6) 402.5 (2) 576.8 (11)

General Average 402.6 314.4 358.7 Total Ships (32) (39) (82) Standard Deviation 180.4 139.3 167.4 Total No. of Slaves 12,884 12,261 29,414

Source : Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers {1845), XLIX, u Slave TradeSlave Vessels" report printed 25 Feb. 1845. I am indebted to pr Philip Curtin for providing me with his coded I.B.M. cards of this data.

a I have combined the 10 ships listed as being Brazilian with the total Portuguese figure.

b This total includes 8 ships unknown as to nationality, plus 1 ship each from France, Denmark and the Netherlands.

c I have grouped all the above ports according to the general regions as specified by pr Curtin, except for the Congo and Angola. In the latter region I have included Rio Zaire, Cabinda and .Malembo, because they were now effectively Portuguese ports. This leaves the Loango coast and up to Cape Lopez as designations of Congo ports.

In analyzing other features of the African slave trade to Cuba on the basis of routes, however, marked variation does appear when con-

from the late 19th century ratios in the early years of the East African trade, see Herbert S. KLEIN and Stanley L. ENGERMAN, " Shipping Patterns and Mortality in the African Slave Trade to Rio de Janeiro, 1825-1830 ", Cah. Et. afric., forthcoming.

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trasting the three streams. In terms of the number of males present and the number of children, the African route, along with the mixed route differs markedly from the Caribbean originated slaves. The fact that there was a larger number of children among the total of females imp or-

TABLE 8. - Age and Sex Characteristics of the Africans Imported Into HaYana by Type of Route.

Route Sex Ratio Percentage Children . Men per 100 women (Women) % {Africans)

Caribbean 262.7 (8,111) 32.1% (38,653) (under 100)

Mixed 232.8 (12,118) 40.3% (41,981) (100-199)

African . 221.3 (31,636) 42.3 °/o (102,704) (over 199)

General Average 230.4 39.7 ToTAL AFRICA:N (51,865) (183,338)

ted as opposed to the total number of males, explains the similar trend exhibited by these two age and sex variables. Why this overall phenomenon of low female participation even among the African traders is, however, a difficult question to answer. There has been considerable speculation about the sexual imbalance found in all parts of the African slave trade to America. Since the American prices of women slaves differed little from men, and since women were equally employed in harsh field labor, their under-representation in the trade has puzzled investigators. Is this sexual imbalance due to the reluctance of Africans themselves to export women who were so valuable in their societies (in terms of their roles as kinship binders, child producers and as agricultural workers), or was it a reluctance of planters to have women slaves ? From the price and work data, the answer would s.eem to be the reluctance of Africans to allow women to leave African society in large numbers. Nevertheless, the very much lower incidence of their participation in the intra-Caribbean trade, may reflect West Indian planters refusal to export their small stock ·of women, or the reluctance of Cuban planters to seek them.

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HEl\BERT S.,... KLEIN

TABLE 9.- Age and Sex Characteristics of the Imported Slave Population, Havana 1790-1820.

Year of Arrival

1790 1791 1792 1793 1794 1795 1796 1797 1.798 1799 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 1820

ToTAL

MALES

Adults a.

1,686 4,585 4,630 1,580 2,504 3,174 2,169 2,657 1,146 2,643 1,149

844 6,983 4,750 4,618 2,756 1,951 1,150

448 422

2,818 2,283 1,372 1,401

838 2,671 6,703 9,537 3,473

222 69

83,232

Teens b

129 396 510 186 366 450 334 235 168 350 145 136 973 663 631 391 401 223

88 69

655 733 302 320 123 539

1,300 2,740 3,104

227 127

17,014

Youths c

544 1,196 1,178

465 502 762 583 631 214 656 808 273

1,520 1,378

841 727 734 507 205 232

1,259 1,132

673 360 287

1,222 3,570 4,443 3,128

195 73

29,798

Adults a.

522 1,159 1,168

306 376 986 535 453 157 531 285 259

2,573 1,638 1,463

651 485 336 118 148 837 748 328 339 242

1,112 2,775 3,159 1,841

284 57

25,871

FEMALES

Teens b

136 427 415

94 101 247 179 189 39

109 41 55

806 529 573 166 158 127

41 28

444 344 166 214 121 379

1,286 1,816 1,545

225 105

11,105

Youths c

351 735 637 176 163 283 207 275 58

208 90 92

930 707 515 300 203 226 113 89

659 509 293 193 169 860

1,899 2,234 1,407

203 105

14,889

a Adults were listed as piezas, meaning piezas de Indias which was the standard slave trade term for adults _of both sexes. Though the definition often changes, most authorities agree that it defined adults of ca. 18 years or above.

b Teenagers, or mulec6nes (f. mulecas), were defined as being imported Negroes of from eleven to seventeen years of age.

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c Youths, or muleques (f. mulec6nas), are defined as imported or bozal Negroes from ca. seven to ten years. For these rough definitions see : Constantino SuAREZ, Vocabulario cubano, Havana, 1921, p. 372; and Delfin DoNAoiu y PuiGNAU, Diccionario de la lengua castellana ... Barcelona, 1890-95, 4 vols., III. Hubert Aimes defined these last two categories in slightly lower age groups, with muleque being 6 or 8 to 12 or 14 years, and mulec6n from 12 or 14 to 17 or 18 years of age. Anms, History ... , p. 47 n.

When viewed over the course of the Spanish documented trade, the increasing number of children and of females is seen as a reflection of the increasing dominanc~ of the direct African trade. In the case of women, in the peak years of 1816-1818, non-adults actually outnumber adults. Why this increasing participation of persons under 18, and among these of persons in the youngest age categories, is a difficult problem to assess. It may be that for females, Africans were more willing to part with small children and pre-pubescent females, than with more important- adults. _Why this same phenomenon should occur with the males is difficult to determine. Clearly this was a new trend of major importance within the history of the Atlantic slave trade. In almost all 18th century slave trades, children were a distinct minority, usually averaging less than 10% of the total slaves carried. The increasing incidence of children therefore reflects basic changes within the trade, most likely due to changes within the African trading zones. It would appear, given their similar costs of transportation and their lower selling prices in America, that children were always less desired by the slave traders than adults. The fact that they were taking more children therefore may reflect inelasticities in the supply of adults, possibly due to the opening up of new slave trade zones which were reluctant to supply them.

The basic trends established in the Cuban slave trade by 1820 were closely followed in the post 1820 trade. While the post-1820 -data currently available is based on the reports of British consuls in Cuba and is far less complete or as reliable as the previous Spanish recorded data, it nevertheless provides enough material to evaluate the general trends 9 • What emerges from a study of the trade from 1820 to 1843, is that the Iberian domination of the trade remains intact and that the African route predominates. After 1820 the numbers carried per ship now rises above three hundred number per average vessel, reaching figures close to the numbers carried in the much larger Portuguese slave trade to Brazil. At the same time, the increasing participation of the Portuguese and Brazilian shippers is also manifest. While the Spanish merchants still dominate the trade, the Portuguese are

9. Pr. Serge DAGET of the Universite d'Abidj~n notes that the British consuls deliberately under-reported the participation of illegal French slave traders in the post-1820 trade to Cuba. Personal communication to the author, 19 Aug. 1974.

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HERBERT S. KLEIN

now much more active. Given the fact that the Portuguese were also running the massive Africa to Brazil trade, it seems evident that

TABLE 10. _,... Average Number of Slaves Carried by the Major Traders to All Ports of Cuba, 1820-1843 (number of ships in parentheses).

Year of General Total Arrival Spain Portugal a France Aver. All b Slaves

• Nations Carried ---

1820 ... 454.0 (1) 240.0 (1) 258.0 (4) 1,032 1821 431.6 (5) 205.0 (1) 246.0 (1) 340.2 (8) 2,722 1822 ... . .. 168.0 (2) 168.0 (2) 336 1823 ... . .. . .. 300.0 (1) 300 1825 c 308.7 (23) ... . .. 312.2 (34) 10,614 1826 243.8 (6) .... . .. 240.8 (8) 1,926 1827 336.0 (5) ... . .. 336.0 (5) 1,680 1828 387.6 (7) ... . .. 387.6 (7) 2,713 1829 217.9 (7) 358.9 (9) ... 314.2 (17) 5,341 1830 214.9 (4) ... . .. 352.0 (5) 1,760 1831 ... 157.0 (1) . .. 378.5 (2) 757 1832 378.8 (4) 401.0 (1) ... 419.3 (6) 2,516 1833 442.0 (4) ... ... 442.0 (4) 1,768 1834 253.5 (2) 346.0 (1) ... 284.3 (3) 853 1835 339.4 (9) ... . .. 339.4 (9) 3,055 1836 419.0 (6) 206.0 (1) ... 388.6 (7) 2,720 1837 101.0 (3) 323.6 (5) ... 240.1 (8) 1,921 1838 286.0 (3) 293.0 (25) ... 296.1 (30) 8,882 1839 174.0 (1) 344.0 (30) 540.0 (1) 355.9 (34) 12,102 1840 ... 504.5 (12) . .. 428.0 (22) 9,417 1841 235.0 (4) 416.9 (15) ... 396.3 (28) 11,097 1842 ... 340.0 (2) . .. 379.0 (10) 3,790 1843 371.8 (5) · 350.0 (1) ... 382.2 (17) 6,497

GENERAL AvERAGE 319.7 358.1 284.5 343.7 93,799 ToTAL SHIPS (98) (105) (11) (27) STANDARD DEVIATION 160.3 163.4 113.7 160.7 ToTAL SLAVES 31,332 37,599 3,130

Source : Same as table 7.

a This is the combined Brazil-Portugal total.

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. b There were six ships in this total belonging to USA, Holland, Sweden, Russia, Denmark and Russia. This total also includes 51 ships whose nationality was unknown.

c There were no ships listed as arriving in 1824 and known as to the slaves they carried. There were another 462 ships counted by the British as arriving in Cuba in this period, but whose number of slaves carried was unknown.

the Portuguese and Brazilians were unqualifiedly the major slave tra-ding nations of the 19th century. ·

By 1843, then, the Cuban slave trade was a trade completely dominated by Iberian slave traders and overwhelmingly a direct African trade which obtained its slaves from all parts of Africa. At the same time, the trends toward increasing numbers of children and women within the trade, along with the internal positive growth rate of the resident native slave population 10, tended to bring the sexual ratio of the slave population toward a more balanced pattern. In fact, the rapid increase of the white population through the traditional input of young adult males in the middle years of the century, saw the male ratio among whites actually exceed the male ratio among Black slaves by the census of 1861 11•

Although the trade would continue to function for another two decades, it is difficult to see it playing the vital role after 1843 that it did in the pre-1843 period. According to the estimates made by Aimes, the trade declined from an average of over 8,500 per annum in the 1830's and early 1840's, to ca. 2,500 from the late 1840's to 1860 and to ca. 1,000 per annum in the final1861-1865 period. This decline was probably due to the increasing effectiveness of British intervention, the internal growth rates of the resident native slave pop~ation and to the structural changes within the sugar industry itself which may have reduced the demand for slaves. Nevertheless, Cuban authorities tacitly permitted the trade to continue, largely to placate planter fears, until the mid 1860's when United States intervention at the end of its Civil War effectively terminated the now internationally declared illegal trade to the island. In turn, both the great social and politi-

10. The argument for a positive native Cuban slave rate of growth I have elaborated elsewhere, see Herbert S.KLEIN, "North American Competition and the Characteristics of the African Slave Trade to Cuba, 1790-1794 ",William and Mary Quart. 3rd Ser., XXVIII (1970), no.1. This same thesis has been fully elaborated in the important study by Jack E. EBLEN," On the Natural Increase of Slave Populations: The Example of the CubanBlack Population, 1775-1900" in Stanley L. ENGERman and Eugene D. GENOVESE, .eds., Race and Sla11ery in the Western Hemisphere: Quantitati11e Studies, Princeton, 1974.

11. The ratios were 144 males per 100 females among the whites in 1866, and 148 males per 100 females for the slaves in a special census of 1857. For the 1857 census see Archivo Historico Nacional (Madrid), Secci6n de Ultramar, legajo 3533, expedients 167, no. 98. For the 1861 data see U.S., War Department, Office Director Census of Cuba, Report on the Census of Cuba, 1899, Washington, D.C., 1900, p. 81.

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HERBERT S, KLEIN

cal revolution which was known as the First Ten Years War ( 1868-1878), and the rise of the new sugar centrales fostered the decline of slavery on the island itself. Thus when abolition finally occurred in the 1880's, there was only a small slave population on the island which made up a minority of the over hal£ million Cubans who were Blacks or mulattoes.

Herbert S. KLEIN.

RESUME

La traite cubaine fut la plus precoce et la plus durable (1511-1865) de toute !'Amerique. Elle ne prit toutefois de !'importance qu'avec le developpement de I' economie de plantation et la suppression des monopoles commerciaux a la fin du XVIIIe siecle. L'etude analyse la traite cubaine du point de vue demographique et naval a I' epoque de son developpement maximum, 1790-1843. L'analyse, a partir des archives maritimes espagnoles et consulaires anglaises, porte sur les esclaves transportes sur 2100 navires pour lesquels la documentation est complete. La croissance est reguliere pendant toute la periode et les navires etrangers participent activement a la traite tant que les guerres europeennes et les traites ne s'y opposent pas. Apres 1808, l'Espagne et le Portugal dominent le trafic. Celui-ci devient entierement africain a pres a voir ete mi-parti d' origine antillaise et mi-parti d'importation africaine directe. On constate aussi alors un plus grand pourcentage de femmes et d' enfants, ce qui diminue !'impact des Africains sur I' equilibre des ages et des sexes dans la population esclave de l'ile. A Ia date de 1843, on peut dire que le taux de croissance positif de la population esclave creole etait plus important pour !'augmentation de la population servile que !'apport de la traite.

SUMMARY

The Cuban slave trade was the oldest and longest in the Americas, going from 1511 to 1865. It did not become a significant trade, however, until the growth of the plantation economy and the abolition of monopoly trading which occurred at the end of the 18th century. This study undertakes to analyze the demographic and shipping aspects of the Cuban trade in its period of major growth, 1790-1843. Using Spanish naval reports and British consular records, complete information for the slaves carried on some 2,100 ships was analyzed. There was a regular rate . of growth throughout the period and foreign slave ships actively participated in the trade until European wars and formal treaties of abolition prevented . their participation. After 1808, Spain and Portugal dominated the trade. At the same time the trade which had been a two-part trade (Caribbean originated and direct African) became a more exclusively African trade. In this second period of the trade,

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there was also an increasing participation of women and children which led to a diminishing impact of the Africans on the age and sexual imbalances in the structure . of the islands slave population. By 1843, it is argued that positive rates of growth in the native slave population accounted for a greater percentage of the increase in slave population ·on the island than did the African slave trade.

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Documents

Cuban Slave Trade 1790-1843