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Secured Transaction History: The Impact Of English Smuggling On The Chattel Mortgage Acts In The Spanish Borderlands, George Lee Flint Jr, Marie Juliet Alfaro

Faculty Articles

Spanish colonies, including the territories of Florida, Louisiana, and southwestern America, acknowledged the jurisdiction of Spanish royal decrees. The colonies approached the registration of mortgages in a similar but more tentative fashion, recognizing the distances between the borderlands and the registrar’s offices. The law developed differently in Florida and Louisiana, which were administered by a different governmental body. While the registration process was required for chattel mortgages on slaves, there is no evidence the rules were enforced or applied to other types of mortgages on personalty. However, in 1770, Louisiana adopted a filing requirement for chattel mortgages for all slaves …