Corruption, “Plagio de Negros,” and the Final Days of the Trade in Enslaved Africans to Cuba

This paper examines the narrative, significance, and fallout from the “Argüelles Affair” in which nearly 1,300 Africans were illegally imported to Cuba aboard the steamship Cicerón. It focuses on both colonial and international law, and the factors that resulted in the successful suppression of the contraband slave trade. The Cicerón, owned by the largest slave trader in history, transported the last cargo of enslaved Africans to leave the port of Ouidah in late 1863. A Spanish army officer captured the Africans after their secret landing in the Bay of Pigs, and they became the centre of a battle for the extraordinary rendition of Spanish slavers from New York—resulting in controversial and politically tenuous orders from Abraham Lincoln. The bulk of the paper explains the experiences of the Africans from Cicerón, as they navigated the complex and corrupt laws that governed their unusual status as emancipados—quasi-enslaved wards of the colonial government.