author

Pedro de Zulueta

A 19th-century Spanish businessman and writer in London, he is best remembered for the book that grew out of his 1843 Old Bailey slave-trading trial. His story sits at the crossroads of commerce, politics, and one of the darkest moral battles of the age.

1 Audiobook

Trial of Pedro de Zulueta, jun., on a Charge of Slave Trading, under 5 Geo. IV, cap. 113, on Friday the 27th, Saturday the 28th, and Monday the 30th of October, 1843, at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London A Full Report from the Short-hand Notes of W. B. Gurney, Esq.

Trial of Pedro de Zulueta, jun., on a Charge of Slave Trading, under 5 Geo. IV, cap. 113, on Friday the 27th, Saturday the 28th, and Monday the 30th of October, 1843, at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, London A Full Report from the Short-hand Notes of W. B. Gurney, Esq.

by Pedro de Zulueta, William Brodie Gurney

About the author

Born in 1809, he was a Spanish aristocrat and businessman who made his career in London. Reliable sources identify him as Pedro José de Zulueta y Madariaga, later the 2nd Count of Torre Díaz, and note that he also moved in political circles as a senator in Spain.

As an author, he is chiefly associated with Trial of Pedro de Zulueta, Jun., a published account connected to the 1843 Old Bailey case in which he was charged with slave trading. That case has kept his name in view for historians because it links his life to the wider debates over slavery, trade, and empire in the 19th century.

He died in 1882. While surviving reference sources make the outline of his public life fairly clear, easily confirmed biographical detail about his personal character and day-to-day life is limited, so most modern attention focuses on the trial, the book, and the historical questions surrounding both.