Title

Asiento Document

Accession Number

2006.003.0002 a

Creation Date

July 31 1673

Description

Regarding the agreement of Domingo Grillo and Ambrosio Lomelin for the exclusive right to import African slaves into the Spanish colonies. Stamped signature 'Yo La Reyna" of Maria Ana de Austria, dowager queen of Spain. Folio leaf, folded to form four pages, written on three and docketed on the fourth. Official Spanish stamps on first and last page; written and signed by scribe Gabriel Bernardo de Quiros. Lomelin and Grillo were Genoese merchants who, in 1663, were granted the exclusive right to import African slave to the New World via three main ports of the Spanish Colonies: Cartagena, Portobelo, and Veracruz. This important document addresses the issue of the sale of slave in places not specifically agreed to in the contract, discusses payments and audits, and acknowledges the difficulties and risks to this traffic posed by pirates and "enemies of Spain"- and allusion to British privateers out of the West Indies. the King of Spain at this time was Carlos II, but because of physical and mental impairment, the Queen Dowager, Maria ana de Austria, conducted affairs of state.