Cartagena de Indias
A Spanish port on the Caribbean coast of present-day Colombia, the main port through which enslaved Africans entered Spanish South America. The Jesuit Alonso de Sandoval worked there from 1605.
Today: Cartagena, Colombia
How the Angola Trade Fed Cartagena
Alonso de Sandoval, On Restoring the Salvation of the Ethiopians (Seville, 1627; 2nd ed., Madrid, 1647), book 1, chapter 22 · first printed 1627; this text from the second edition, 1647 (events of about 1600–1620)
Pero en lo que toca al rescate de esta tierra, que parece que el Padre se escusa de tratarlo. Digo, que en vna ocasion se me lamentaua vn Capitan de vna armazon de negros, que traía de Angola en vn nauio, por auer tocado en vn baxio llamado los Negrillos a vista de Cartagena, y corrido tan gran naufragio (exemplo de lo que acabamos de dezir) que solamente escapò treinta de nouecientos que en èl traía, que tambien ay venturas en las desdichas.
As for the trade in captives in Angola itself, which the Father seems to excuse himself from discussing, I will say this. Once a captain came to me grieving over a whole cargo of Africans that he was bringing from Angola in his ship. It had struck a shoal called the Negrillos, within sight of Cartagena, and was so badly wrecked that only thirty of the nine hundred aboard escaped. This is an example of what we have just said, for even misfortunes come in degrees.
Como si adiuinara sucedio: que es la poca possibilidad cruel verdugo de los que nacieron con honra. Viendose pues ambos socorridos vinieron a las manos, trauaron cruel guerra, vencio el vno. Desta rota tomaron ocasion muchos ladrones, y gente ociosa, y de mala vida para hazer en el Reino muchos insultos, robos, y latrocinios, que semejantes desgracias son ferias francas en que los tales grangean, y se aprouechan, viendo que la justicia està ocupada, y diuertida en las desgracias; y que la confusion no dà lugar a recatos. Con lo qual huuo abundante rescate, y auia aquel gran numero de esclauos, que al presente corria, y de donde salian los innumerables negros que a Cartagena llegauan en aquel tiempo.
It happened just as if he had foreseen it, for poverty is a cruel executioner of those born to honor. With both sides reinforced, they came to blows and fought a cruel war, and one of them won. Many thieves and idle, lawless people seized on this defeat to commit assaults, robberies, and thefts across the kingdom. Disasters like these are open fairs where such people do business and profit, since the law is busy and distracted by the disaster, and in the confusion no one is on guard. So captives were plentiful, and that was why there were so many slaves on the market now. From there came the countless Africans who were reaching Cartagena at that time.