Ok, now I'm not going to sleep tonight.
is there another human slave ranch in S. America?
Is that why she never spoke of Argentine?
The Argentine National Archives hold a large collection of colonial documents from the period of the Spanish government in the American continent. The most modern pieces reach approximately the year 1821, with the end of the operation of the last institutions that had characterized the colonial State.
Significance of this documentary heritage
The collection was included in the Memory of the World Registry in 1997.
The document collection begins in 1600 with the By Laws (Acuerdos), Tax Records (Propios) and the Archive of the Town Council (Cabildo) of Buenos Aires, and the Escribanías Antiguas (Old Notary’s Offices), that is, the first Notary Protocols of this Capital.
According to the historical evolution of the area, the pieces are relatively scarce for the 16th and 17th centuries, but very rich for the 18th century, especially in the last decades when the taking over of the Bourbon dynasty brought a restructuring at a territorial and administrative level.
This collection highlights the proceedings of governors, viceroys, and mayors and of other government bodies such as the Consulate, the Customs and the National Audit Office, expressed in the Crown’s Regulations (Pragmatics, Royal Notices, Royal Orders, Decrees and Edicts), in the files and in the correspondence records. In many cases, there appears only the commencing of a procedure which will be continued in Spain; therefore our archive is complemented with the files kept at the Archivo de Indias in Seville, the Archivo de Simancas and the Historical Archive of Madrid.
The documents also mention topics related to commerce, shipping, taxes, agriculture, industry, hospitals, border problems, aspects of Indian life, different religious orders, transportation, campaigns against the Portuguese, slave trade, conflicts with Great Britain and the Guarani wars, among others.
The material greatly exceeds the limits of the present Argentine territory, and includes the entire Virreinato del Río de la Plata –Viceroyalty of the River Plate– (Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay) and parts of the present territory of Peru. That constitutes the reason why the collection is essential for the study of the countries which make up the Mercosur, and it also provides relevant information with reference to Río Grande do Sul in Brazil and on some islands located on the African coast which were dependencies of the Viceroyalty, which allows the research into the circuits of Atlantic trade.
The Slave Trade in the Collection
The Slave Trade in Spanish America went through different stages. In a first moment, the Council of the Indies had jurisdiction over the issue, creating its own "Junta de Negros". As the Spaniards were not directly involved in this trade, they handed over to third countries the task of introducing black slaves in the regions that required manpower. The licenses were granted in principle to the Portuguese, the French and other nationalities. In a second stage, the trade was regulated by means of Asiento Treaties, as the one conferred to the French Company of Guinea in 1700, and after the Peace of Utrecht, to the South Sea Company. Based on these agreements, the beneficiary Company paid the King a percentage as tax. It was also entitled to introduce in the American ports, five hundread tons of merchandises to dress and feed the slaves. This concession had a major influence on the overall commercial policy of the River Plate region, determining a strong English influence. In a third stage, Charles IV abolished in 1789 the Asiento system, authorizing the free traffic of slaves.
Finally, in 1813, the Constituent Assembly determined the "freedom of wombs" (children to the slaves were born free) and prohibited Slave trade, while the National Constitution of 1853 abolished slavery. During the 1820s, the freed blacks were grouped by "nation" in "African Societies", used as a means of social control of the colored population.
All documents in the collection are handwritten on paper. The document types present in the collection regarding the Slave Trade are Slave Censuses, Books of Confiscated Slaves, Applications for Licenses to Import Slaves, Books of the English and French Asiento Companies, Books on the trade with the Guinea Gulf, Bills of Trade, Books of Accounts. There are also may deeds of slave purchases in the Public Notary Books, as well as documents relating to the "African Societies".
News
Reconstructing the Slave Route in the Colonial Era Reconstructing the Slave Route in the Colonial Era*
21-05-2003 (UNESCO) - Reconstructing one of the darkest pages of Argentina’s history, the one of the African slave trade of the Rio de La Plata, this is the aim of the contribution of the National General Archives (Archivo General de la Nacion) of Argentina to the Slave Trade Archives project, being carried out in the context of the Memory of the World programme of UNESCO. More than 500 documents have hence been digitised by the institution with UNESCO’s financial support.