Cuba and the Intra-American Slave Trade: Routes, Demography, and Sources

During the eighteenth century, more enslaved Africans arrived in Cuba from other regions in the Americas than directly from Africa. Until recent scholarly publications and the launching of the Intra-American Slave Trade Database called attention to the subject, the transshipment of enslaved people across regions in the Americas following their arrival from Africa had received less attention than its transatlantic counterpart. A case in point exemplifying that historiographical gap is that the number of enslaved people who disembarked in Cuba from other territories in the Caribbean or the mainland Americas instead of directly from Africa should have been accounted for in previous demographic estimates. Yet, they were just recently added to the big picture. This paper maps out the directions of the Intra-American slave trade to and from Cuba from the early eighteenth century to the first quarter of the nineteenth century. It is argued here that Cuba’s role in the Intra-American slave trade can be divided into three main periods based on the nationality of the enslaved carriers: the British prominence in the provision of captives to Cuba from 1715 to the 1780s, the multinational trade to Cuba, 1780s-1808, and the domestic Cuban-based intra-American slave trade that lasted until the early 1830s. Based on the nationality of the carriers and their fluctuating participation in the trade, it is possible also to analyze the African origins of the captives, the strategies adopted by enslavers to circumvent abolitionist laws, and the creation of the Cuban-based slaving infrastructure. Concurrently with the data, this paper outlines the nature of the Cuban, British, American, and Puerto Rican archival sources used to conduct this research, its potential for further study, and its limitations.