[66]
War interrupted this contract several times, and long before the
termination of the thirty years the English ceased to import slaves.
Several contracts for the importation of slaves into the Antilles were
made from 1760 to the end of the century. First a contract was made
with Miguel Uriarte to take 15,000 slaves to different parts of
Spanish America. In 1765 the king sanctioned the introduction by the
Caracas company of 2,000 slaves to replace the Indians in Caracas and
Maraeaibo, who had died of smallpox. All duties on the introduction of
negroes into Santo Domingo, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Margarita, and Trinidad
were commuted in the same year for a moderate capitation tax, and the
Spanish firm of Aguirre, Aristegui & Co. was authorized to provide the
Antilles with negroes, on condition of reducing the price 10 pesos per
head, besides the amount of abolished duty.
This firm abused the privileges granted, and the inhabitants of all
the colonies, excepting Peru, Chile, and the Argentina, were allowed
to provide themselves, as best they could, with slaves from the French
colonies while the war lasted (1780).
Four years later, January 16, 1784, a certain Lenormand, of Xantes,
received the king's permission to take a ship-load of African slaves
to Puerto Rico on condition of paying 6 per cent of the product to the
Government.
In this same year the barbarous custom of branding the slaves was
abolished.
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