ASSIENTO TREATY; in Spanish, EL ASIENTO DE LOS NEGROS, and EL FACTO or TRATADO DEL ASIENTO, that is, the compact for the farming, or supply, of negroes. It is plain that the word Assiento, though oc casionally signifying an assent or agree ment, cannot, as is sometimes stated, have that meaning in this expression. Spain, having little or no intercourse with those parts of Africa from which slaves were obtained, used formerly to contract with some other nation that had establishments on the western coast of that continent for the supply of its South American posses sions with negroes. Such treaties were made first with Portugal, and afterwards with France, each of which countries, in consideration of enjoying a monopoly of the supply of negroes to the South Ame rican dominions of Spain, agreed to pay to that crown a certain sum for each negro imported. In both cases the As siento was taken by a commercial asso ciation in France—by the Guinea Com pany, which thereupon took the name of the Assiento Company (Compagnie de l'Assiente). Both the Portuguese com pany and the French were ruined by their contract. At the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, the Assiento, which the French had held since 1702, was transferred to the English for a period of thirty years. In addition to the exclusive right of import ing negroes, the new holders of the con tract obtained the privilege of sending every year a ship of 500 (afterwards raised to 600) tons to Spanish America, with goods to be entered and disposed of on payment of the same duties which were exacted from Spanish subjects ; the crown of Spain, however, reserving to itself one-fourth of the profits, and five per cent. on the remaining three-fourths.
The contract was given by Queen Anne to the South Sea Company, which, how ever, is understood to have made nothing by it, although it was calculated that there was a profit of cent. per cent. upon the goods imported in the annual ship, which usually amounted in value to about 300,000/. So much of this sum as fell to the share of the Company was either counterbalanced by the loss attendant on the supply of the 4800 negroes which they were bound to provide every year, or went chiefly into the pockets of their South American agents, many of whom in a few years made large fortunes. The war which broke out in 1739 stopped the farther performance of this contract when there were still four years of it to run ; and at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, the claim of England to this re mainder of the privilege was given up. Spain indeed complained, and probably with justice, that the greatest frauds had been all along committed under the pro vision of the treaty which allowed the contractors to send a shipload of goods every year to South America. It was alleged that the single ship was made the means of introducing into the American markets a quantity of goods amounting to severs/ times her own cargo. The public feeling in Spain had been so strongly ea cited on the subject of this abuse, that it would have been very difficult to obtain the consent-of that country to a renewal of the treaty.