The Temptations of Trade by Finucane Adrian;

Author:Finucane, Adrian; [Finucane, Adrian;]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780812248128
Publisher: LightningSource
Published: 2019-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

The End of the British Asiento, 1739–1748

In the years leading up to the War of Jenkins’s Ear, the situation in the West Indies between Britain and Spain steadily deteriorated. Even as they lined their pockets through the contraband trade and by navigating the ambiguous edges of empire, agents of interimperial trade corroded cooperation by exploiting the contact between empires, along with pirates, guardacostas, and others. The South Sea Company employees who lived in the Spanish Americas certainly felt this shift, but the crumbling of the official trade did not mean an end to contact or commerce with the Spanish for all involved. Some company employees continued to take advantage of their Spanish American contacts long into and even after the war, though with more difficulty than under the asiento. Despite the conflict between the empires, Spanish trade and society retained some allure for these British traders, continuing to complicate imperial loyalties. During the asiento period, the people of both empires experienced an official and legal trade between the empires that offered new opportunities for individual profit, in ways that at times conflicted with supporting the policies of their empires. Even as some Britons were able to briefly continue to make use of their Spanish American contacts and imperial knowledge, connections with the enemy and presence on Spanish American shores became more dangerous in wartime. Those who represented the hopes for the British Empire on the ground would find their positions precarious as official cooperation broke down.

One of the most active agents in creating and maintaining contact with the Spanish was company factor James Houstoun, born in Scotland around 1690. Houstoun, like so many of his countrymen, pursued medicine at Edinburgh before leaving Scotland to pursue his fortune. He traveled widely in order to complete his education, including to Holland and France, where he indulged his tendencies toward drunkenness and licentiousness and demonstrated his ability to make both fast friends and sworn enemies.1 After his training, Houstoun joined the Royal African Company on the West African Coast, monitoring the health of the slaves purchased there for sale to the American colonies. The company found him particularly valuable because of his knowledge of smallpox, which could be quite destructive to slave cargoes. By 1724 Houstoun, having “suffered very grievous Hardships” under one of the Royal African Company agents in Whydah, decided to try his luck in the Americas.2 Having been introduced to company officials by the duke of Chandos, an influential figure in the Royal African Company, he accepted the position of surgeon in the South Sea Company’s factory at Cartagena.3 Houstoun spent most of the next fifteen years in the West Indies, where he pursued his fortune, forged close relationships with friends from many nations and walks of life, and continued to ensure the health of the slaves who were transferred from Africa into the Spanish empire. The record of his exploits in the West Indies, preserved in multiple memoirs, provides a strikingly full picture of the asiento trade and the Spanish Americas from the perspective of a man with a long experience of travel.

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