How a Cuban Spy Sabotaged New York’s Thriving Illicit Slave Trade

Repeating Islands

John Harris (Smithsonian Magazine) writes about Cuban spy Emilio Sánchez and how, from 1859 to 1862, he helped the British government to fight “the lucrative business [the slave trade] as American authorities looked the other way.” [Many thanks to Odlanyer Hernández de Lara for sharing this item.]

The men of the “Portuguese Company,” about a dozen in total, arrived in 1850s Manhattan ready to bring the illegal slave trade to America’s mega-metropolis. Hailing from ...