The United States-Rio de la Plata Slave Trade during the Age of Atlantic Revolution

During the last decades of Spanish colonialism in mainland Americas, intermittent warfare disrupted the commercial system that linked Spain to its colonial possessions. Historians have emphasized the significance of foreign commercial penetration in re-configuring trade patterns in the Iberian Atlantic. In order to promote economic growth and maintain the commercial activity in it American territories, the Spanish Empire promoted a series of reforms, among them a series of regulations liberalizing the participation of foreigners in the salve trade. In the Rio de la Plata, trade with foreign nations had substantial economic impact. Historians have emphasized the increase in trade with foreign subjects (especially British), as crucial to the region's process of obtaining political autonomy and free trade. Although peripheral in the historical literature, during the politically turbulent 1790s and first two decades of the 19th century, United States merchants penetrated Spanish American markets in a significant manner rivaling the British presence. The US American presence in the Rio de la Plata is even more pronounced when examining the slave trade to the region. Between 1796 an 1810, a total of 49 vessels flying the United States flag introduced approximately 7,200 slaves in the ports of Montevideo and Buenos Aires. This paper examines the routes, commercial networks, and the political context in which the US American slave trade unfolded in the South Atlantic. During the Age of Revolutions, while trade with foreign nations was crucial for the economies of the Spanish territories in the Americas, US American merchants found new commercial opportunities and established longstanding connections in the territories of the Spanish Monarchy in the South Atlantic.