(MEXICO) Charles IV King of Spain Royal decree freeing all f

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(MEXICO.) Charles IV, King of Spain. Royal decree freeing all foreign slaves who escape to Spanish domains. Letterpress broadside, 17 x 12 1/4 inches, on verso of a double sheet of sealed paper, with official signatures on recto and docketing on verso; uncut, short separations along center fold. Mexico, 20 May 1790

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Charles IV here decrees that any slave coming into his domains will be freed, if they swear loyalty to the Spanish Crown. He cites a specific 1773 case of slaves escaping from the island of Grenada to Trinidad as an example. This law may also have been intended as a check on the small informal British colony at the Bay of Honduras (Belize), where the British colonists depended upon slave labor to gather their mahogany and logwood exports. Many Belizean slaves would take full advantage of this law. This printing was ordered in Mexico by the Viceroy of New Spain, Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguayo, Conde de Revillagigedo. It bears his manuscript paraph, and the signature of the Condado del Valle de Orizaba. Not in Medina, Mexico; 2 copies in OCLC.