"Que gocen de libertad": the Spanish rule that slaves fleeing foreign colonies became free (1773-1789)

A circular royal cédula of 14 April 1789 ordered that enslaved people who escaped from foreign colonies into Spanish territory were not to be given back and kept the liberty they acquired by taking refuge. It was decided on the case of a free mulata of Trinidad who offered to buy her mother and six siblings out of English Grenada, and it reversed an instruction of 1783 ordering such fugitives returned. Weeks earlier the same crown had opened the slave trade to its subjects.