The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Chapter 2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapter 10-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Introduction-Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction Summary

The Introduction to The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America alerts the reader to the book’s structure. Reséndez acknowledges that many readers are only familiar with African slavery in the Western Hemisphere. He notes that, “The very word ‘slavery’ brings to mind African bodies stuffed in the hold of a ship or white-aproned maids bustling in an antebellum home” (1). The purpose of The Other Slavery is to document the enslavement of Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean, central and northern Mexico, and the American Southwest. Reséndez uses the term “other slavery” because it targeted Indigenous peoples rather than Africans and involved a range of captivity and coercion forms.

Reséndez initially believed that the enslavement of Indigenous peoples was marginal, especially compared to African slavery. Sources on Indigenous slavery suggest otherwise. Indigenous and African slavery coexisted from the 16th through the late 19th century. One key difference is the legal status of the two kinds of slavery. African slavery is easier to track in historical records since it was legal. Since enslaved Africans crossed the Atlantic, there are ship and port records detailing their numbers and bills of sale. From these records it can be determined that there were 12.5 million enslaved Africans in the Americas.

In contrast, it is difficult to understand the scope and breadth of Indigenous slavery because it was illegal. Through a challenging paper trail with broad geographic and chronological scopes, including judicial proceedings, official inquiries, and casual mentions of Indigenous captives and raids in letters, historians and researchers estimate that there were 2.5 to 5 million Indigenous slaves. Indigenous slavery was near impossible to end despite numerous attempts over the centuries because of its persistent and widespread nature. For this reason, Reséndez argues that this “other slavery had been a defining aspect of North American societies. And yet it has been almost completely erased from our historical memory” (8). Through this book, Reséndez hopes to detail Indigenous enslavement, which lasted for four centuries and is a key part of North America’s history.

Chapter 1 Summary: “Caribbean Debacle”

Chapter 1 tells the story of how the enslavement of Indigenous peoples by European colonizers began in the Americas. This chapter focuses on Christopher Columbus, a particularly cruel colonizer, who helped shape the other slavery. Columbus was an Italian explorer who stumbled across the Americas in his attempt to find a direct sea route between Spain and Asia. Columbus’s initial focus was on finding gold, silks, and spices, such as saffron, nutmeg, and cloves, which came from Asia. These goods would sell for outrageous prices in Europe. He desired fortune and fame. The agreement he negotiated with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, rulers of Spain, ensured that he controlled one-quarter of the overall trade between Spain and the Americas along with numerous honors and titles.

Local Indigenous peoples from Española (what is today the Dominican Republic) initially traded gold with the Europeans during their first visit. Columbus and the other explorers surveyed the island and realized that mining the gold would require time and substantial labor. The explorers could not find the spices and silks that they sought. Facing mounting costs from the cross-Atlantic journeys, Columbus needed to figure out a way to make his discovery economically viable.

Like many of his contemporaries, Columbus believed Europeans, especially those from the Mediterranean, were the superior race compared to the Indigenous peoples. Europeans, especially the Portuguese, were also already making profits in other countries by exporting goods, including slaves. Columbus came up with an economic plan that involved turning the Caribbean into a Spanish Empire stronghold and exporting goods, including Indigenous peoples as slaves. The earliest ships returning to Spain included dozens of Caribs, an Indigenous people who lived on the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean.

Columbus would have continued exporting Indigenous peoples back to Spain and Europe more broadly. Two factors changed Columbus’s economic plan. The first is that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella firmly opposed the enslavement of Indigenous peoples. In fact, they mandated the return of the Indigenous peoples to the Caribbean. The second is that the Caribbean had valuable natural resources, particularly gold, which required human labor to extract.

Over the next few years, Cibao, located in the mountainous region in Española, became the Spanish Empire’s gold region and stronghold in the Americas. Columbus initially requested that all Indigenous people of Cibao 14 years of age or older provide a few grams of gold dust as tribute every three months. This procurement method was ineffective. Most of the Indigenous peoples avoided the tribute either by hiding in the mountains or leaving Cibao.

Spanish miners, with a team of Indigenous peoples called cuadrilla, tried their hand at panning for gold. These miners were colonists with limited knowledge of metals or mining techniques. They forced the Indigenous peoples to do the incredibly strenuous and back-breaking labor, which included clearing an area of large rocks and trees, moving the dirt to the nearest stream, carrying “their Christian masters in hammocks” (32), and sifting through the dirt in search of gold dust. Thousands of pounds of dirt typically resulted in just a few grains of gold. Due to the number of Spanish colonizers involved, Española exported two thousand pounds of gold per year during the early gold rush years.

The fundamental issue facing Columbus was how to keep the mines supplied with workers since the Spanish monarchs opposed the enslavement of the Indigenous peoples. Nicolás de Ovando, a Spanish military leader who the Spanish monarchs sent to restore order to the Caribbean, came up with a solution. This solution became known as the encomienda system. Under this system, Indigenous people were distributed to various colonists. The colonists exacted tribute from them. Ovando did not intend for this system to enslave the Indigenous people, but the encomienda system became a form of enslavement. The gold rush and Ovando’s encomienda system wiped out the Indigenous population. To fix this policy failure, Ovando proposed another “dramatic and far-reaching solution: bring Indian slaves from the surrounding islands to work in the gold mines and other endeavors of Española” (39).

Chapter 2 Summary: “Good Intentions”

After the near wiping out of the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, a group of activists led by Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas pled with the Spanish monarchs to enact more stringent laws to protect the rights of Indigenous peoples. Las Casas was an early Spanish historian and Dominican missionary, who documented the oppression of Indigenous peoples by the Spanish in the Americas and advocated for the abolition of Indigenous slavery. He scandalized court members by recounting the atrocities committed by the Spanish conquerors against the Indigenous peoples. With the Spanish monarch’s support, Las Casas and other activists introduced The New Laws of 1542, a legal code intended to improve the lives of Indigenous peoples, to the Americas.

Under this legal code, Indigenous peoples could claim their freedom. Specialized lawyers, known as procuradores generales de indios, represented Indigenous peoples. The law shaped the lives of Indigenous peoples living in Spain and the Americas differently. The New Laws required that all Spaniards living in Spain prove legitimate ownership of their Indigenous slaves or they had to free them. The Spanish monarch at the time, Charles I, directed Gregorio López, a legal scholar, to make inquiries and look for Indigenous peoples held in bondage illegally. He and other royal officials helped Indigenous peoples sue their masters. Archives from Spain reveal that most Indigenous litigants won their cases.

The implementation of the New Laws in the Americas was far less successful in part because Indigenous peoples supported the economies. One example is in Mexico where Indigenous slaves extracted gold and silver from mines. Colonists in Mexico fought back against the New Laws. They sent petitions to the Spanish monarch outlining how Indigenous slavery occurred prior to the arrival of the Europeans and how some of the Indigenous communities were cannibals. The purpose of these petitions was to convince the Spanish crown that Indigenous slavery should continue in Mexico. King Charles I reaffirmed his order resulting in outright rebellion by colonists. For example, a group of colonists in Peru murdered the royal official sent to enforce the New Laws. Because of the violence against royal officials, King Charles relented and allowed the continuation of encomiendas.

Pursuing legal options remained much more challenging for Indigenous peoples in the Americas. In Mexico, for example, legal fights often lasted a year or more, “during which time many of the slaves either died, fled, or found an accommodation with their masters or some other individuals” (73). Officials also allowed Indigenous peoples captured in uprisings to remain slaves, despite the New Laws dictating that these individuals should also be freed. Most trials also occurred only in Mexico City. Indigenous peoples working in mines on the frontier had a difficult time traveling to Mexico City, resulting in most never attempting legal proceedings.

Introduction-Chapter 2 Analysis

Taken together, the Introduction and first two chapters of The Other Slavery serve as an important overview of Reséndez’s intended arguments. The Introduction provides a synopsis of many of the major people, places, and laws that he intends to cover. Given the amount of history that Reséndez discusses, this synopsis helps to orient readers to the structure and flow of his argument. The author also explains his use of the term “other slavery,” which is both the title of the book and central to the discussion.

The origin of this other slavery is unknown, although it is endemic to human societies all around the world. In the Americas, the enslavement of Indigenous peoples predates the arrival of the first Europeans. These practices of captivity were specific to cultural contexts. For example, the Aztecs and Mayans took captives to use as sacrificial victims for rituals and the Iroquois partook in “mourning wars” (3), which were campaigns on neighboring Indigenous groups to avenge and replace their dead. From their very first arrivals, Europeans not only tapped into these practices but commodified and expanded them.

One example is the encomienda system. The Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, particularly the Taíno people, were organized into stratified societies. Individuals at the top, known as caciques or chiefs, exercised control over the rest of the community, including extracting tribute in the forms of goods and services. Indigenous peoples understood the encomienda system since it was similar to their own system. They key difference is that the Spaniards codified this system. Moreover, the colonists’ sole focus on profiting from the gold rush resulted in them enslaving thousands of Indigenous men, many of whom died. The women, children, and elderly left behind in the villages did not fare better, succumbing to starvation and disease. The encomienda system decimated Española’s Indigenous population. Reséndez uses the term “other slavery” to describe these new practices of captivity and forced labor first implemented by the Spanish and then other Europeans.

Throughout these early chapters, Reséndez compares Indigenous and African slavery. The African slave trade consisted primarily of adult males, whereas the Indigenous slave trade consisted primarily of women and children. Europeans sought women and children because they believed they were better suited to domestic services. Reséndez suggests that “the two slaveries seem like mirror images” (6). Indigenous slaves could also become part of the dominant society, since they were legally free, especially after the passage of the New Laws. This code reaffirmed that Indigenous peoples were not slaves. One example is Gaspar, an Indigenous boy who was tricked into leaving Española. Once in Spain, he became a weaver, which made him valuable to his various masters. Gaspar “expected to be treated with the considerations due to a loyal and valuable servant” (53). He was able to improve his condition over the course of his lifetime, even going to court to protect his rights under the New Laws. Had Gaspar been of African heritage this opportunity would not have been open to him. African slavery “was a legally defined institution passed down from one generation to the next” (7). There were also laws in place throughout the American South that prevented Black slaves from testifying in court. Reséndez emphasizes that “the legal regimes under which African and Indian slaves operated were vastly different” (48).