Ended Anglo-Spanish commercial disputes stemming from the 1713 Asiento by canceling the slave-trade contract in exchange for £100,000 and restoring British merchant privileges in Cádiz.
Key Facts
- Signing date
- 5 October 1750
- Also known as
- Treaty of Aquisgran
- Asiento buyout payment
- 100,000 £
- Origin of dispute
- 1713 Treaty of Utrecht Asiento grant to Britain
- Key British trade hub
- Cádiz, Spain
- Spanish king at signing
- Ferdinand VI (r. 1746–)
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Commercial friction over the Asiento slave-trade monopoly granted to Britain in 1713, combined with allegations of British smuggling into Spanish America, sparked the War of Jenkins' Ear in 1739. The subsequent War of the Austrian Succession ended in 1748, but the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle inadvertently failed to renew British merchants' trading privileges in Cádiz, creating new bilateral disputes.
On 5 October 1750, Britain and Spain signed the Treaty of Madrid in the Spanish capital. The agreement restored the trading rights of British merchants operating out of Cádiz, which had lapsed due to a drafting error at Aix-la-Chapelle. Crucially, it formally canceled the Asiento slave-trade contract, which both sides had found contentious, in exchange for a one-time British compensation payment of £100,000.
The treaty resolved longstanding financial claims each side held against the other under the Asiento and re-established the profitable bilateral trade through Cádiz. By eliminating the Asiento, it removed a persistent source of Anglo-Spanish rivalry, reflecting the more conciliatory stance of Ferdinand VI toward Britain compared to his predecessor.
Political Outcome
Britain's Cádiz trading privileges restored; Asiento slave-trade monopoly canceled in exchange for a £100,000 lump-sum payment to Britain.
Britain held the contentious Asiento monopoly; British merchant privileges in Cádiz were effectively void after Aix-la-Chapelle.
Asiento abolished; British merchants regained legal trading status in Cádiz; mutual financial claims settled.