Indigenous Slavery in the Circum-Caribbean: The Miskitu’s Slave Trade and Its Consequences

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article details a trade in Indigenous slaves that was controlled by the Miskitu, a group indigenous to the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and Honduras. During the eighteenth century, the Miskitu targeted other Indigenous communities from the Yucatan to Panama, capturing thousands of individuals whom they sold as slaves in the British Caribbean. This frustrated the Spanish government, who tried to stop these raids by advocating for increasingly harsh policies, including the extermination of the Miskitu. The British, on the other hand, ignored this slave trade until they were forced to confront it because of legal reasons (which happened three times from 1741 to the 1820s). The Miskitu’s slave trade uprooted, relocated, and forced enslavement upon an enormous number of Indigenous people across Central America. This article details the immense scope of Miskitu attacks, lends insight into the many Indigenous groups impacted by these raids, and explores how European powers were forced to react.