Asiento Contract 1713

Cover of the English translation of the Asiento contract, signed by Britain and Spain in 1713 as part of the Utrecht treaty that ended the War of the Spanish Succession. It gave Britain the sole right to trade enslaved people to the Spanish Americas. Chief British negotiator was John Robinson, Bishop of Bristol. It made Britain the premier slave-trading nation in the world, with Bristol being preeminent between the 1720s and 1740s. Public domain.