Black African Slavery in the Caribbean Islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico

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African Slavery in Cuba and Puerto Rico
The period between the 17th and 19th centuries marked an era when the slave trade, especially across the Atlantic, was the leading lucrative business for the settlers in the Americas. Millions of Africans were ferried across the Atlantic Ocean in gruesome conditions that led to some of them perishing even before reaching the destination, while those who reached the destination found it hard under the hands of slave traders and inhuman masters. Following the outrage by the Anti-Slavery Society in the late 18th century and early 19th century, the British parliament was forced to enact laws that would make the slave trade illegal. In 1807, the British parliament banned the slave trade and subsequently banned it in its colonies in 1834, marking a perceived ending of the slave trade (Miles 44). However, the banning of the slave trade did not completely abolish it but rather led to a new course of the trade. Cuba and Puerto Rico became the new destination of the slave trade across the Atlantic (Bergad 98). Besides, slavery in Cuba had long been in existence as settlers relied on slaves from the west side of Africa to the Cuban island to support the Spanish sugarcane plantations.
There is a well-documented history of the slave trade in Cuba, a Caribbean island colonized by the Spanish. The activity was widespread in the late 18th century through to the mid 19th century when it was finally abolished in the Spanish colony. Cuba became the longest-serving destination of the illegal slave trade that was fueled by the booming sugar and cotton plantations. Even in earlier times, as early as the 1500s, the slave trade in Spanish America had been widespread, to an extent where there were licensed slave traders following the abolition of the illegal slave trade. The motive behind the widespread slave trade in the early 16th century, destined to the Caribbean islands, remained the same; that is, slaves were sought to provide cheap and free labor in sugarcane plantations. Sugarcane plantations became a phenomenon throughout Cuba in the 1570s, marking the pinnacle of the African slave trade in the Caribbean island.
The conquest of Mexico, Peru, Jamaica, and other Caribbean islands in the 16th and 17th centuries shifted the focus of slave trade and sugar plantation from Cuba to the other Spanish and Portuguese colonies, leading to a steady decline in the number of slave merchants and slaves in the region. However, the abolishment of the slave trade in 1807 by the British parliament and 1834 for its subsequent colonies following an outcry by the Anti-Slavery Society brought back the focus of the slave trade to the Cuban island (Bergad 98). Slavery and the slave trade remained legal in Cuba and other Caribbean nations. This meant that the sugar plantations were booming, attracting British slave merchants and bankers to the Caribbean island. The booming sugar business contributed to over 20 percent of the sugar exported to Britain, which attracted the rich and aggressive British slave merchants to the great investment opportunity. The merchants joined forces with planters in Havana, leading to the continued slave trade, spearheaded by the British m...