African Sovereignty and Spain’s Slave Trading Agenda in the Gulf of Guinea Islands, 1778–1783

Abstract This article examines how the inhabitants of the West African Gulf of Guinea islands protected their sovereignty and defeated Spain’s agenda to establish the slave trade in their territories in the late-eighteenth century. Newly utilized soldiers’ depositions from the National Archive of Argentina are combined with records from Seville, Simancas, and Richmond to explore how the natives of Pagalu and Bioko defended their sovereign territory from Spanish interlopers. The people of Pagalu utilized the local leaders of the island’s elder council, religious traditions of ancestor worship, and direct threats of death to force the Spanish off their island. The people of Bioko deprived, harassed, and threatened the Spanish settlers, instilling such terror that the surviving troops imprisoned their commander, took over the expedition’s last ship and sailed away from the island. Spain did not attempt to return to the Gulf until 1858. Working from a decolonial praxis, this research emphasizes how the islanders envisioned, stated, and preserved their own sovereignty in the Gulf, countering Spanish views that their territories were “empty” lands available for the taking.