The Spanish Empire

The Spanish use of transportation dates to at least the first half of the sixteenth century, when Philip II advised his viceroys that ‘some men are incorrigible, inobedient, or harmful, and are to be expelled from the land and sent to Chile, the Philippines or other parts’.²⁴ Most convicts were sent to presidios, fortified settlements established to exert military control in colonial borderlands.

This practice lasted until 1911, when the convicts held in Spanish enclaves in North Africa were repatriated.²⁵ The total number of presidios established within the Spanish Empire is difficult to calculate, but between 1524 and 1821 over 100 were constructed in northern New Spain, Alta California and Spanish Florida alone.²⁶ Others were established in Africa, elsewhere in the Americas, Asia and Oceania. The number of convicts transported from Spain to presidios in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries appears to have been small; most were sent to Oran, Melilla and neighbouring settlements in North Africa. They included among their number a grandson of Columbus, who received a ten-year sentence for trigamy in 1563.²⁷

High death rates meant that many presidios were short of labour and frequently demanded new consignments of convicts.²⁸ Many laboured as fortress and dockyard construction workers in the Spanish Caribbean, where they were considered to be cheaper and more expendable than slaves.²⁹ Between 1703 and 1811 the Acordada, the most important law enforcement agency in New Spain, issued 19,410 sentences to presidios.³⁰ Additional numbers were sent to Havana, in Cuba, and Sanjuan, in Puerto Rico, from metropolitan Spain.³¹

The Spanish presidio system in North Africa operated from the early fifteenth century to 1911. Some presidiarios were employed constructing fortifications while others served in penal military units.

Hard data on the number of convicts is difficult to locate, but it is clear from desertion, death and sentence completion rates that turnover was significant. Based on the available data, we estimate that 26,000 served in Oran between 1509 and 1708 and again from 1732 until the sale of the settlement to the Ottomans in 1792. On the basis of the ratio of presidiarios serving in Oran compared with the presidios of Melilla and nearby El Penon in the years 1772—1788, it is likely that at least a further 13,000 were sent to North Africa by the close of the eighteenth century.³²

In the early nineteenth century the number of troops sent to the North African presidios declined and convicts were increasingly used as soldiers, as well as in construction and as servants, watermen, policemen, bakers and gardeners.³³ Newspaper reports suggest that convict strength stood at three to six thousand at any one time. We estimate that the Spanish transported at least 40,000 during the nineteenth century. About 1,000 convicts also arrived in Fernando Po from the Philippines, Cuba and metropolitan Spain between 1862 and 1899 (see Table 7.1).³⁴

Table 7.1 Estimates of Spanish convict transportation flows, 1550-1911

Origin	Destination	Period	Est. Number
Spain	Cuba and Puerto Rico	1769-1837	4,000
New Spain	New World presidios	1550-1811	25,000
Spain	North African presidios	1550-1911	80,000
Cuba and	Fernando Po	1862-1899	1,000
Philippines
Total		1550-1911	110,000

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Source: Aldrich Robert, McKenzie Kirsten (eds.). The Routledge History of Western Empires. Routledge,2014. — 542 p.. 2014

The Spanish Empire

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