English

Abstract

In the present article I study the slave conspiracy of the Day of the Kings in Puerto Rico in 1812, using the reports of the colonial authorities and the declarations of the slaves envolved in it. My goals are: first, to highlight the fact that external factors were decisive in the forge of the cited plot, especially the news of the coronation of Henri Christophe in Northern Haiti and of the abolitionist debate in the Spanish Cortes de Cádiz, which reached the Hispanic Caribbean from mouth to mouth; second, to show that the said conspiracy, as well as the Aponte rebellion in Cuba and the black plot in Santo Domingo, all of whom took place in 1812, were not independent slave plots, but rather three different echoes of the same wave of uneasiness that shook the Spanish Antilles at that moment. For that purpose, I have articulated my exposition in five sections: first, I analyze the antecedents of the plot of the Day of the Kings; then, I describe the external factors that favored it, recovering the testimony of the slaves involved in that episode; third, I study the development of the conspiracy; after that, I analyze the punishment of the slave leaders; finally, I sum up my conclusions.