ABSTRACT
This paper examines the decrees issued by the Spanish kings and colonial authorities granting freedom to runaway slaves from foreign colonies. The aim is to interpret these laws, comprised of royal cedulas, proclamations, orders, and instructions, which have been registered from 1680 to the late eighteenth century, in the field of international politics and inter-imperial rivalry. I claim that, despite the precedents in Castilian legal tradition dating back to medieval times, this set of legal dispositions was, above all, a diplomatic expedient used by the Spanish Crown as a threat to rival slavery-based Atlantic empires.
Keywords:
slavery; fugitive slaves; international relations; Spanish empire; Law of the Indies