Commentary No. 042
Date: 1510, January 22. Valladolid, Spain.
Theme: The King of Spain reiterated a prior order to the Casa de la Contratación for the sending of 50 “slaves” to La Española to work in the extraction of gold for the Crown
Source: PARES, Portal de Archivos Españoles, Archivo General de Indias,INDIFERENTE,418,L.2,F.98V.-99R.
In a communication to the Casa de la Contratación of Seville in early 1510, the King informed the recipient that a few days before he had ordered 50 “slaves” sent to La Española, having recently received a request from the treasury officials of that colony to send them “slaves”, because they were “very necessary in the breaking of the rocks where the said gold is found, because the Indians reportedly are very skinny and of little strength.”
In light of the above, the monarch ordered the Casa de la Contratación that “you must quickly put all the diligence you are capable of into searching for the said slaves, which must be the best and toughest you may find, and send them to the island of Española […] as fast as you can.” The king, who was at the time in Valladolid, considered the issue “of so much urgency” that he ordered that the first courier available leave for Seville “with this only, without waiting for anything else.”
As has been indicated elsewhere in this platform, this document confirms the fact that the arrival of the first enslaved Black Africans at La Española was connected with the mining enterprise there, as well as the construction of defensive military structures.