ABSTRACT
As part of their adaptive business strategies, Grillo and his partners pursued the slave asiento with the Spanish Crown to gain privileged access to the Atlantic economies. Grillo’s 1662 asiento, which was active until 1674, was a decisive managerial turning-point in the way in which the African slave trade was organised to and in the Spanish Empire, something that frequently goes unnoticed in the literature. As explained in this Chapter, this asiento established a monopoly over the slave trade which put an end to the traditional licencing system that had kept the official slave trade open to multiple merchants. It also formally endorsed trans-imperial trade in the Caribbean. Moreover, a new, exclusive jurisdiction was created to shelter the activities of Grillo’s company and future asiento holders. All these and other innovations were to set the framework for the official slave trade until the mid-18th century. By scrutinising the bargaining processes that underpinned the thorny association between Grillo and the Crown, this chapter shows the way foreign, private Genoese entrepreneurs shaped the empire’s institutions and set the model for the future, official, trans-imperial slave trade to Spanish America.
