Asiento de Negros: Britain Granted Monopoly to Supply 4,800 Enslaved Africans Per Year to Spanish Colonies

The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 included the Asiento de negros, granting Britain a monopoly on supplying enslaved Africans to Spanish colonies in the Americas. Under the agreement, Britain was entitled to transport 4,800 enslaved Africans per year for 30 years to Spanish American ports. The South Sea Company was granted the contract and became a major transatlantic slave-trading corporation. The agreement formalized British commercial dominance in human trafficking and accelerated the volume of people torn from West Africa. It represented the integration of the slave trade into the highest levels of European state diplomacy, treated as a commercial asset equivalent to trade in goods.