Treaty of Utrecht

In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht ceded control of the West African slave trade to the French and English.  The Treaty granted the British the asiento for slave trade, a license for a monopoly over a trade route or product.  Asientos were issued by the Spanish king and had historically been granted to the Portuguese.  British domination over the ports surrounding the Niger Delta led to the spread of English in the area.  British merchants cooperated with Nigerian middlemen who supplied the slaves to be transported through the Middle Passage to colonies in the Americas.  These slave dealers used a broken form of English as their means of communication [Blackburn, 2010].