or a combination of three specific transactions: an unsecured short-term loan, a transfer of payment, and a currency exchange contract. Between the early 16th and the mid-18th century, were used by the Spanish treasurer to adjust short-term imbalances between revenues and expenditures. The sovereign promised to repay the principal of the loan plus high interest (12%). The participant bankers in Seville, Lisbon, Republic of Genoa and Amsterdam, in turn, drew on the profits and direct investments obtained from a large number of Atlantic merchants. In exchange for a set of scheduled payments, merchants and financiers were given the right to collect relevant taxes or oversee the trade in those commodities that fell under the monarch's prerogative. In this way a set of merchants received the right to ship tobacco, salt, sugar and cacao on a trade route from the Spanish West Indies, some times accompanied by licences to export bullion from Spanish Main or Cadiz. In particular, the would result in great impact for the economy of Spanish American colonies, because the treaty secured or would secure fixed revenues for the crown and the supply of the region with certain commodities, whereas the contracting party bore the risk of the trade. A new asiento was the safest means to get their money back and cash their arrears. History of the Background in the Spanish Americas The general meaning of (from the Spanish verb , to sit, which was derived from the Latin ) in Spanish is "consent" or "settlement, establishment". In a commercial context, it means "contract, trading agreement". In the words of Georges Scelle, it was "a term in Spanish public law which designates every contract made for the purpose of public utility...between the Spanish government and private individuals." The Asiento system was established following Spanish settlement in the Caribbean when the indigenous population was undergoing demographic collapse and the Spanish needed another source of labour. Initially, a few Christian Africans born in Iberia were transported to the Caribbean. But as the indigenous demographic collapse was ongoing and opponents of the Spanish exploitation of indigenous labour grew, including that of Bartolomé de Las Casas, the young Habsburg king Charles I of Spain allowed for the direct importation of slaves from Africa (bozales) to the Caribbean. The first asiento for selling slaves was drawn up in August 1518, granting a Flemish favourite of Charles, Laurent de Gouvenot, a monopoly on