Spanish colonial tax revenues depended substantially on the slave trade by 1612

Evidence

Finally, one might add the testimony of contemporaries. The comments come from widely different moments in the business of slavery but their sources, their specifics, and their timing all describe the enthusiasm with which the system of slavery was undertaken. From the archives of the first “large-scale introduction of Africans” into the New World, Vila discovers: In a report about the asientos taken to the Junta in 1612 it was affirmed that, should the trade be lost, not only would the income produced by it be lost, but also the sales tax (alcabala) and the export-import tax (averia) on the money that arrived from the Indies… . Moreover the buying and selling of slaves was one of the most important and lucrative sources of the Alcabalas. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 581

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 581
• XREF: connects to: Colonial taxation chiefly aimed to force locals into the colonial capitalist system — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 58; Slave trading rescued the Mediterranean bourgeoisie from eclipse by northern merchants; Spanish colonial slave duties measured human beings in arbitrary standardized pieces

Broader Connections

• Spanish colonial slave duties measured human beings in arbitrary standardized pieces #expands (0.60)