Charles V Opens the Direct Trade From Africa With the First Asiento
A charter for 4,000 captives ends the requirement that enslaved people first pass through Spain, launching the direct transatlantic trade
Quick facts
- Date
- August 18, 1518
- Issued by
- Emperor Charles V
- Recipient
- Lorenzo de Gorrevod
- License size
- 4,000 enslaved Africans
What happened
Before 1518, Spain's American colonies received enslaved Africans only indirectly, after they had first been brought to Spain or Portugal and baptized as Christians. On August 18, 1518, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V issued a charter, an asiento, to his courtier Lorenzo de Gorrevod granting him permission to ship 4,000 enslaved Africans directly from West Africa to Spain's American colonies, ending the requirement that captives first touch Iberian soil. Gorrevod, who had no shipping operation of his own, immediately sold the license to Genoese merchant financiers for a substantial profit. The asiento system this charter created, in which the Spanish crown sold monopoly licenses to supply enslaved Africans to its colonies rather than trading directly, would structure Spanish colonial slaving for the next two centuries.
Why it matters
This charter opened the first large-scale direct sea route between West Africa and the Americas, the route that would carry the overwhelming majority of the roughly 12.5 million people forced across the Atlantic over the following three and a half centuries. The asiento license also became a valuable diplomatic prize; European wars would later be fought partly over which nation held the right to supply Spanish America with enslaved labor.
How we know
The original charter is held in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville and is reproduced and translated by the University of Miami's Slavery, Law and Power digital archive, alongside analysis by the Lowcountry Digital History Initiative.
Sources
- Slavery, Law, and Power in the Atlantic World (digital archive of Archivo General de Indias records). Charter of 1518 · Primary source (author-declared)slaverylawpower.org · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match).
- Lowcountry Digital History Initiative, College of Charleston. The Early Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: Emperor Charles V · Reputable sourceldhi.library.cofc.edu · The domain "ldhi.library.cofc.edu" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Related timelines
- The Spanish Empire → · The asiento system Charles V created to supply Spain's American colonies with enslaved labor became one of the most fought-over commercial privileges in the Spanish empire.