Negro Slavery In Puerto Rico

From the early days of the conquest the black race appeared side by

side with the white race. Both supplanted the native race, and both

have marched parallel ever since, sometimes separately, sometimes

mixing their blood.



The introduction of African negroes into Puerto Rico made the

institution of slavery permanent. It is true that King Ferdinand

ordered the reduction to slavery of all rebellious Indians n 1511,

but he revoked the order the next year. The negro was and remained a

slave. For centuries he had been looked upon as a special creation for

the purpose of servitude, and the Spaniards were accustomed to see him

daily offered for sale in the markets of Andalusia.



Notwithstanding the practical reduction to slavery of the Indians of

la Espanola by Columbus, under the title of "repartimientos," negro

slaves were introduced into that island as early as 1502, when a

certain Juan Sanchez and Alfonso Bravo received royal permission to

carry five caravels of slaves to the newly discovered island. Ovando,

who was governor at the time, protested strongly on the ground that

the negroes escaped to the forests and mountains, where they joined

the rebellious or fugitive Indians and made their subjugation much

more difficult. The same thing happened later in San Juan.



In this island special permission was necessary to introduce negroes.

Sedeno and the smelter of ores, Giron, who came here in 1510, made

oath that the two slaves each brought with them were for their

personal service only. In 1513 their general introduction was

authorized by royal schedule on payment of two ducats per head.



Cardinal Cisneros prohibited the export of negro slaves from Spain in

1516; but the efforts of Father Las Casas to alleviate the lot of the

Indians by the introduction of what he believed, with the rest of his

contemporaries, to be providentially ordained slaves, obtained from

Charles II a concession in favor of Garrebod, the king's high steward,

to ship 4,000 negroes to la Espanola, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica

(1517). Garrebod sold the concession to some merchants of Genoa.



With the same view of saving the Indians, the Jerome fathers, who

governed the Antilles in 1518, requested the emperor's permission to

fit out slave-ships themselves and send them to the coast of Africa

for negroes. It appears that this permission was not granted; but in

1528 another concession to introduce 4,000 negroes into the Antilles

was given to some Germans, who, however, did not comply with the terms

of the contract.



Negroes were scarce and dear in San Juan at this period, which caused

the authorities to petition the emperor for permission to each settler

to bring two slaves free of duty, and, this being granted, it gave

rise to abuse, as the city officers in their address of thanks to the

empress, stated at the same time that many took advantage of the

privilege to transfer or sell their permit in Seville without coming

to the island. Then it was enacted that slaves should be introduced

only by authorized traffickers, who soon raised the price to 60 or 70

Castilian dollars per head. The crown officers in the island

protested, and asked that every settler might be permitted to bring 10

or 12 negroes, paying the duty of 2 ducats per head, which had been

imposed by King Ferdinand in 1513. A new deposit of gold had been

discovered about this time (1533), and the hope that others might be

found now induced the colonists to buy the negroes from the authorized

traders on credit at very high prices, to be paid with the gold which

the slaves should be made instrumental in discovering. But the

longed-for metal did not appear. The purchasers could not pay. Many

had their property embargoed and sold, and were ruined. Some were

imprisoned, others escaped to the mountains or left the island.



From 1536 to 1553 the authorities kept asking for negroes; sometimes

offering to pay duty, at others soliciting their free introduction;

now complaining that the colonists escaped with their slaves to

Mexico and Peru, then lamenting that the German merchants, who had the

monopoly of the traffic, took them to all the other Antilles, but

would bring none to this island. However, 1,500 African slaves entered

here at different times during those seventeen years, without

reckoning the large numbers that were introduced as contraband.



Philip II tried to reduce the exorbitant prices exacted by the German

monopolists of the West Indian slave-trade, but, finding that his

efforts to do so diminished the importation, he revoked his

ordinances.



A Genoese banking-house, having made him large advances to help equip

the great Armada for the invasion of England, obtained the next

monopoly (1580).



During the course of the seventeenth century the privilege of

introducing African slaves into the Antilles was sold successively to

Genoese, Portuguese, Holland, French, and Spanish companies. The

traffic was an exceedingly profitable one, not so much on account of

the high prices obtained for the negroes as on account of the

contraband trade in all kinds of merchandise that accompanied it. From

1613 to 1621 during the government of Felipe de Beaumont, 11

ship-loads of slaves entered San Juan harbor.



During the eighteenth century the traffic expanded still more. To

induce England to abandon the cause of the House of Austria, for which

that nation was fighting, Philip V offered it the exclusive privilege

of introducing 140,000 negro slaves into the Spanish-American colonies

within a period of thirty years; the monopolists to pay 33-13 silver

crowns for each negro introduced, to the Spanish Government.





War interrupted this contract several times, and long before the

termination of the thirty years the English ceased to import slaves.



Several contracts for the importation of slaves into the Antilles were

made from 1760 to the end of the century. First a contract was made

with Miguel Uriarte to take 15,000 slaves to different parts of

Spanish America. In 1765 the king sanctioned the introduction by the

Caracas company of 2,000 slaves to replace the Indians in Caracas and

Maraeaibo, who had died of smallpox. All duties on the introduction of

negroes into Santo Domingo, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Margarita, and Trinidad

were commuted in the same year for a moderate capitation tax, and the

Spanish firm of Aguirre, Aristegui & Co. was authorized to provide the

Antilles with negroes, on condition of reducing the price 10 pesos per

head, besides the amount of abolished duty.



This firm abused the privileges granted, and the inhabitants of all

the colonies, excepting Peru, Chile, and the Argentina, were allowed

to provide themselves, as best they could, with slaves from the French

colonies while the war lasted (1780).



Four years later, January 16, 1784, a certain Lenormand, of Xantes,

received the king's permission to take a ship-load of African slaves

to Puerto Rico on condition of paying 6 per cent of the product to the

Government.



In this same year the barbarous custom of branding the slaves was

abolished.



The abominable traffic was declared entirely free in Santo Domingo,

Cuba, and Puerto Rico by royal decree, February 28, 1789. Foreign

ships were placed under certain restrictions, but a bounty of 4 pesos

per head was paid for negroes brought in Spanish bottoms, to meet

which a per capita tax of 2 pesos per head on domestic slaves was

levied.



By this time the famous debates in the British Parliament and other

signs of the times announced the dawn of freedom for the oppressed

African race. Wilberforce, Clarkson, and Buxton, the English

abolitionists, continued their denunciations of the demoralizing

institution. Their effects were crowned with success in 1833. The

traffic was abolished, and ten years later Great Britain emancipated

more than twelve million slaves in her East and West Indian

possessions, paying the masters over one hundred millions of dollars

as indemnity.



Spain agreed in 1817 to abolish the slave-trade in her dominions by

May 30,1820. By Articles 3 and 4 of the convention, England offered to

pay to Spain $20,000,000 as complete compensation to his Catholic

Majesty's subjects who were engaged in the traffic.



The Spanish Government illegally employed this money to purchase from

Russia a fleet of five ships of the line and eight frigates.



The slaves in Puerto Rico were not emancipated until March 22, 1873,

when 31,000 were manumitted in one day, at a cost to the Government of

200 pesos each, plus the interest on the bonds that were issued.



The nature of the relations between the master and the slave in Puerto

Rico probably did not differ much from that which existed between them

in the other Spanish colonies. But these relations began to assume an

aspect of distrust and severity on the one hand and sullen resentment

on the other when the war of extermination between whites and blacks

in Santo Domingo and the establishment of a negro republic in Haiti

made it possible for the flame of negro insurrection to be wafted

across the narrow space of water that separates the two islands.



There was sufficient ground for such apprehension. The free colored

population in Puerto Rico at that time (1830-'34) numbered 127,287,

the slaves 34,240, as against 162,311 whites, among whom many were of

mixed blood. Prim, the governor-general, to suppress every attempt

at insurrection, issued the proclamation, of which the following is a

synopsis:



"I, John Prim, Count of Ecus, etc., etc., etc.



"Whereas, The critical circumstances of the times and the afflictive

condition of the countries in the neighborhood of this island, some of

which are torn by civil war, and others engaged in a war of

extermination between the white and black races; it is incumbent on me

to dictate efficacious measures to prevent the spread of these

calamities to our pacific soil.... I have decreed as follows:



"ARTICLE 1. All offenses committed by individuals of African race,

whether free or slaves, shall be judged by court-martial.



"ART. 2. Any individual of African race, whether free or slave, who

shall offer armed resistance to a white, shall be shot, if a slave,

and have his right hand cut off by the public executioner, if a free

man. Should he be wounded he shall be shot.



"ART. 3. If any individual of African race, whether slave or free,

shall insult, menace, or maltreat, in any way, a white person, he will

be condemned to five years of penal servitude, if a slave, and

according to the circumstances of the case, if free.



"ART. 4. The owners of slaves are hereby authorized to correct and

chastise them for slight misdemeanors, without any civil or military

functionary having the right to interfere.



"ART. 5. If any slave shall rebel against his master, the latter is

authorized to kill him on the spot.



"ART. 6 orders the military commanders of the 8 departments of the

island to decide all cases of offenses committed by colored people

within twenty-four hours of their denunciation."





This Draconic decree is signed, Puerto Rico, May 31, 1843.