Spain and carried Spanish prisoners back.”^51 Moreover, she assures “any man
that holdeth any prisoners for ransom” that cooperation would not curtail
profit, that is, “that no prisoner shall be sent out of the realmwithout the
knowledge and satisfaction of the party whose lawful prisoner he is.”^52
We do not know the outcome. But when the queen authorized the ex-
pulsion of “blackamoores” less than a month later, she may have had just this
kind of arrangement in mind. The timing of her initiative raises the possibil-
ity that she decided ultimately to substitute Negro for Spanish prisoners, a
change that, if true, creates a suggestive parity (almost) between two captive
groups. In any case, it seems very likely that Elizabeth’s proposal was catalyzed
primarily by the worry over English captives and designed as a way to recom-
pense Spain for their return. Negros had value in similar kinds of negotia-
tions, enough that, according to Contreras, Drake offered “to restore all he
had taken from me and the other citizens, to leave the Negroes to their mas-
ters, and to refrain from burning the settlement” at Rio de la Hacha in ex-
change for treasure there.^53 Contreras refused, preferring rather to “lose my
head rather than see [the Spanish king’s] treasure reduced by a single real for
this purpose of ransoming the settlement.”^54 But in other Spanish accounts,
Negroes are returned for ransom. In one, a Portuguese mariner promises to
pay two thousand ducats for “Ana Gomez, a free Negro,” who was captured
at Nombre de Dios (he is willing to pay four thousand ducats for one of his
countrymen).^55 If Negroes could be ransomed by the English, they could also
be ransomed forthe English.
Admittedly, we will never know whether Elizabeth’s first deportation plan
was tied to an exchange for English prisoners, or whether her original target
group had been Spaniards, however likely these scenarios seem. But roughly
one week later, when she ordered another population of “blackamoores” out,
she explicitly justified this move as a payback for the return of English pris-
oners held in Spain and Portugal.^56 Her “open warrant to the Lord Maiour of
London and to all Vyce-Admyralles, Maiours and other publicke officers
whatsoever to whom yt may appertaine” explains:
Whereas Casper van Senden, a merchant of Lubeck, did by his labor
and travell procure 89 of her Majesty’s subjectes that were detayned
prisoners in Spaine and Portugall to be released, and brought them
hither into this realme at his owne cost and charges, for the which his
expences and declaration of his honest minde towardes those prizoners
he only desireth to have lycense to take up so much blackamoores here108 chapter four