The abominable traffic was declared entirely free in Santo Domingo,
Cuba, and Puerto Rico by royal decree, February 28, 1789. Foreign
ships were placed under certain restrictions, but a bounty of 4 pesos
per head was paid for negroes brought in Spanish bottoms, to meet
which a per capita tax of 2 pesos per head on domestic slaves was
levied.
By this time the famous debates in the British Parliament and other
signs of the times announced the dawn of freedom for the oppressed
African race. Wilberforce, Clarkson, and Buxton, the English
abolitionists, continued their denunciations of the demoralizing
institution. Their effects were crowned with success in 1833. The
traffic was abolished, and ten years later Great Britain emancipated
more than twelve million slaves in her East and West Indian
possessions, paying the masters over one hundred millions of dollars
as indemnity.
Spain agreed in 1817 to abolish the slave-trade in her dominions by
May 30,1820. By Articles 3 and 4 of the convention, England offered to
pay to Spain $20,000,000 as complete compensation to his Catholic
Majesty's subjects who were engaged in the traffic.
The Spanish Government illegally employed this money to purchase from
Russia a fleet of five ships of the line and eight frigates.
The slaves in Puerto Rico were not emancipated until March 22, 1873,
when 31,000 were manumitted in one day, at a cost to the Government of
200 pesos each, plus the interest on the bonds that were issued.
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