October 12, 1994 Fort Mosé

From the earliest years of the “new world” period, every economy from Canada to Argentina was, to varying degrees, involved with slavery. Spanish and Portuguese settlers brought the first African slaves to the Americas in 1501, establishing the new world’s first international slave port in Santo Domingo, modern capital city of the Dominican Republic.

Hundreds of thousands of Africans entered the Americas through the sister ports of Veracruz, Mexico, and Portobelo, Panama, “products” of the “Asiento” system wherein the contractor (asientista) was awarded a monopoly in the slave trade to Spanish colonies in exchange for royalties, paid to the crown.

The first such contractor was a Genoese company which agreed to supply 1,000 slaves over an 8-year period, beginning in 1517. A German company entered into such a contract eight years later with a pledge of 4,000.

By 1590, as many as 1.1 million Africans had come through the port…