Latest / The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History
The 1713 Asiento: Britain's Slave Trade License to Print Money
In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht ended the War of Spanish Succession and granted Britain a thirty-year monopoly—the asiento—to supply enslaved Africans to Spain's American colonies. This episode unpacks the asiento's mechanics, its key players like the South Sea Company, and its staggering human cost: over 144,000 captive Africans trafficked under its terms. We explore how the asiento fueled Britain's rise as a commercial empire, the corruption scandals it spawned, and its role in normalizing mass chattel slavery as a state-backed enterprise. We also touch on the resistance it…
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