Seducing Smugglers: The Spanish Empire’s Incentives for a Legitimate Trans-imperial Slave Trade, 1640s–1670s

Abstract This article offers new insight into the relationship between formal trade and contraband in the mid-17th century Caribbean in the light of the asiento slave trade. It disentangles the circumstances in which merchants chose their preferred channels to conduct business and explores why they made these decisions. By analyzing the early contracts between Dutch and English slave traders with the firm of Grillo and Lomellino to service the asiento slave trade to Spanish America (1663–1674), this article examines the incentives and motivations that merchants—sometimes experienced smugglers—had for participating in the official trade. This is especially significant if we take into consideration that international slave suppliers were not coerced into entering the asiento trade by other parties. Instead, they were attracted by a more advantageous business model which reduced uncertainty and increased predictability.