Chapter Fifteen
From Obscurity to Notoriety: Cuban Slave Merchants,[1]
and the Atlantic World
José Guadalupe Ortega
Although they were both newcomers to the Atlantic slave trade, Mariano Carbo and his associate, Pedro Diago, hired Capt. Ignacio Pica, a crew, and outfitted the Nuestra Señora del Carmen with goods and provisions for a slaving expedition in 1794. While sailing in the Caribbean, Capt. Pica found himself under siege by the French corsair Brutus. Outgunned, outclassed, and outmaneuvered, Capt. Pica and his crew concluded that resisting the French corsair would be futile and surrendered to Capt. Jean Garican without incident. Placing Nuestra Señora del Carmen in tow the French sailors set sail with their prize to Charleston, South Carolina.
But just five days after seizing Nuestra Señora, the French crew of the Brutus caught sight of a far more desirable prize on the horizon, a frigate returning from the African coast, laden with 207 slaves and bound for Havana. Refusing surrender Capt. Archibald Galbrach, a seasoned English slave trader, briefly eluded capture before engaging the French. No match for the combat-ready crew of the Brutus, Galbrach’s evasive tactics proved crippling if not fatal for the Dos Hermanos. The Brutus naval assault disabled the Dos Hermanos; the ship’s 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 now faced a practical dilemma: abandon the Nuestra Señora or forsake the readily exchangeable and highly lucrative cargo of the Dos Hermanos.[2]
The entrepreneurial Ignacio Pica offered Jean Garican a practical solution to their problem: why not sell the salvaged Dos Hermanos and its slave cargo to him? Possessing few alternatives, Garican agreed and waited twenty-six hours before finalizing the transaction in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. Thus the ships sailed to Charleston where Ignacio Pica duly exchanged a note worth $25,000 pesos for 207 slaves and a battered ship. Upon his return to the port of Havana, Pica discovered that news of his escapades on the high seas had preceded him. Indeed, Felipe Allwood, the financier of the Dos Hermanos requested an injunction from the Merchant Tribunal, demanding that Pica return the 207 slaves.
With notable exceptions, the historiography of the Cuban slave trade emphasizes the larger political manifestations and demographic transformations of this commerce. Few of these works focus on trade organization and merchant development. For example, Odious Commerce by David Murray primarily reviews British diplomatic and military efforts to suppress the Cuban slave trade. Moreno Fraginales’ classic work on the sugar industry remarks on various significant social and economic aspects of the slave trade, but the author’s analysis is rather decentralized. David Eltis’ exceptional study outlines an integrated Atlantic world by employing quantitative evidence. Spanish imperial control and political largesse take center stage in Pablo Tornero’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 inter-Caribbean trade carried out by petty merchants during the early stages of liberalization.[3]
By and large, analyses place Cuban slave merchants at a distinct disadvantage vis-à-vis other Atlantic merchants. According to interpretations, Cuban slave merchants were either outpaced by “North American domination,” “dependent on North Americans,” or they “relied heavily on American and British carriers.”[4] That English, American, and Portuguese shippers possessed a competitive advantage in this specialized field in the early nineteenth century is undeniable.[5] 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 to their advantage.
The Dos Hermanos incident transcends 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 commercial defeat on the high seas represents the graceful decline of British commercial influence in the Cuban slave trade while Mariano Carbo’s and Pedro Diago’s interloping activities symbolize the steady and systematic emergence of Cuban participation in a crowded and complex industry carried out through adaptation and improvisation.[6] While emphasizing the theme of individual connections and interactions in the Atlantic world, this essay will also outline the economic structural hurdles encountered by Cuban merchants in the early 1800s, and illustrate the international and domestic commercial infrastructures established by these individuals to overcome initial growth problems.
For Cuban slave merchants, the period between the 1790s and 1820s is characterized by three capitalist productive phases, namely competition, growth, and efficiency. Cuban participation in a highly competitive environment marked by geopolitical instability between 1789 and 1807 yielded lackluster results for the up-and-coming domestic industry. However, from 1808 to 1817, Cuban slave merchants expanded their commercial knowledge, experience, and financial capabilities to continue the process of growth and development. 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 movement, or the human element that propelled the expansion of the Cuban slave trade.[7]
Cuban slave merchants anchored their successes in the Atlantic world by developing early models of 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 economy; they could have been aptly labeled merchant-bankers (refacionistas) or landowners (hacendados) as well. The term is a misnomer popularized by the British abolitionist movement, which was later adopted by historians. Because of its longevity and its usefulness in comparative historical articulation, the application of the term is most appropriate for the task at hand.[8] However, when describing specific economic functions other labels will be employed to reflect such transformations. The mature Cuban slave merchant of the 1820s was financing slave voyages to Africa, exporting sugar to North Atlantic economies, financing sugar mills, and acquiring plantations and urban real estate. Immediately following the limited successes of Cuban slave merchants in the 1790s, this new group of slave merchants ascended in the early 1800s and consolidated a clear economic and social presence in Havana by the early 1820s.
Policy Changes, Inertia, and Foreign Competition, 1789–1807
Despite unbridled enthusiasm exemplified by merchants such as Carbo and Diago, 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 lacked not only the practical experience and technical knowledge for participation in such a complex venture but also the requisite social and economic infrastructure in the Atlantic world. As 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. Several limitations, including a dearth of marketable goods, a shortage of trained sailors and slave factors, vague trading regulations, underdeveloped commercial contacts in West Africa, and the absence of Spanish slave factories stifled 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. Because of antiquated commercial networks, Cuban merchants lacked the requisite trading goods to purchase slaves in West Africa. 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 stronghold on trade with the Americas, they maintained a de facto monopoly with New Spain. The 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-à-vis Mexico.[9] The requisite 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 free market legislation, Cuban merchants organized and advocated for change.[10] Along with hacendado groups, Cuban merchants proposed a political and economic framework based on sugar and slavery that would ultimately transform the island. Swayed by active lobbying efforts, the crown tacitly recognized the growing commercial potential of its citadel colony.[11]
In the wake of Spanish merchant demands and political upheaval in Saint Domingue, the crown introduced a number of administrative incentives designed to stimulate the Cuban sugar economy; the liberalization of the slave trade in 1789 formed the cornerstone of such efforts.[12] Despite the liberal trading concessions introduced by the crown in the 1790s, Cuban slave merchants did not immediately capitalize from imperial policies. For at least ten years after the 1789 edict, Spanish merchants supplied the island with slaves from readily available secondary markets in Jamaica, Dominica, New Providence, and Charleston. Even so, the number of Spanish expeditions and imports from these destinations were relatively inconsequential compared to the combined imports of French, Dutch, English, and American efforts. Smaller Spanish carriers, trading an assortment of goods and foodstuffs besides slaves, led most of these expeditions. Indeed, a high proportion of inter-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.[13] American merchants adopted a similar commercial pattern, selling shipments of 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.[14] Cargoes of petty Cuban slave merchants were similarly mundane, consisting of foodstuffs from New England and St. Augustine, and lumber from New Orleans.[15] More than a decade after the liberalization of the 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. Clearly frustrated with royal indifference to long standing demands by Spaniards in Cuba for the liberalization of the slave trade, Cuesta y Manzanal stopped short of blaming the crown for the general lack of domestic experience in transatlantic commercial ventures. According to Cuesta y Manzanal, Spanish political laxity to merchant demands combined with foreign monopolies impeded the development of a Havana based domestic slave-trading system.[16] New royal regulations establishing quotas for Spanish sailors aboard Cuban slaving vessels actually produced unintended consequences. By discouraging Cuban merchants from hiring foreign nationals exclusively, the decrees reduced the free exchange of commercial information and thereby diminished the overall growth of the industry. Yet several Cuban slave merchants largely evaded imperial policies by pursuing free market principles. Regardless of royal regulations, individuals such as Cuesta y Manzanal maintained close ties with British and American slave traders.[17]
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 closing of the eighteenth century saw Liverpool merchants occupying a sizeable portion of the North Atlantic slave trade. Indeed, the impetus of the Industrial Revolution promoted economic efficiency among all English merchants; Liverpool slave merchants were no different, excelling in this particular field as well.[18] 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.[19] Nevertheless, Cuban merchants were unwilling to resign 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 stillborn efforts of the 1790s, the African Company of Havana abstained from calling for a commercial monopoly.[20] The proposal outlined the structural commercial duplication of Liverpool merchant houses. Indeed, these merchants were actively seeking guidance from their English counterparts.[21] The proposed method of absorption centered on the creation of Spanish merchant houses in London and Liverpool that would transmit credit, provisions, and coordinate direct voyages to Africa from Cuba. Cubans 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 warehoused with 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 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.[22]
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 changing, no longer were Spanish merchants junior partners. Indeed, the relationship between Spaniards and North Atlantic merchants developed a symbiotic character, with Spanish merchants increasingly staffing vessels with national crews. However, despite continued growth, Cuban merchants continued to encounter commercial and structural bottlenecks impeding their unrestrained progress.
Structural Inadequacies and Unregulated Growth, 1808–1817
Acquiring technical knowledge for the Atlantic slave trade was not difficult and Spanish merchants were no less capable than their European counterparts in matters of commerce. However, familiarity with the pitfalls of conducting business on the African coast coupled with notable human losses on the high seas were some of the characteristics that marked the second major phase of Cuban 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.[23] Nevertheless, inexperienced crews occasionally anchored too close to the shore, hoping to streamline the loading of their human cargo, thus sometimes efficiency came at a high price. Strong winds and violent waves could batter vessels, shove them, and drive them onto bars or reefs. Despite some losses, Spaniards acquired the requisite specialized nautical skills from British and Americans crews by the 1810s.[24]