Slavery among the indigenous peoples of the Americas
Slavery among the indigenous peoples of North and South America took many forms. After the English settlers arrived, five tribes came to own black slaves, imitating the Europeans.
European colonies purchased indigenous people as slaves as part of the international indigenous American slave trade, which lasted from the late 15th century into the 19th century. Recently, scholars Andrés Reséndez and Brett Rushforth have estimated that between two and five million indigenous people were enslaved as part of this trade.
European enslavement of Indigenous people
The encomienda system was an agreement between the Council of the Indies and the Spanish crown to exchange education and protection from warring for the use of the land owned by the caciques, lords, or encomenderos and the promise of seasonal labour. Intermittently, the colonists needed to purge these anaborios. From the earliest days on the Caribbean islands they settled, the Spanish encomenderos precipitated many revolts and hostilities, both Native American and Spanish in origin, through their harsh treatment. One of the first localities for intensive use of encomienda was the gold mines of Hispaniola.Native American slavery was also practiced by the English in the Carolinas who sold Native American captives into slavery locally and on the English plantations in the Caribbean. One of the first tribes that specialized in slave raids and trade with Carolina was the Westo, followed by many others including the Yamasee, Chickasaw, and Creek. Historian Alan Gallay estimates the number of Native Americans in southeast America sold in the British slave trade from 1670 to 1715 as between 24,000 and 51,000. He also notes that during this period more slaves were exported from Charles Town than imported. Slaving of Indians in Carolinas had been forbidden in about 1672.
Slavery of Native Americans was organized in colonial and Mexican California through Franciscan missions, theoretically entitled to ten years of Native labor, but in practice maintaining them in perpetual servitude, until their charge was revoked in the mid-1830s. Following the 1848 American invasion, Native Californians were enslaved in the new state from statehood in 1850 to 1867. Slavery required the posting of a bond by the slave holder and enslavement occurred through raids and four months' servitude imposed as a punishment for Native American "vagrancy".
The citizens of New France received slaves as gifts from their allies among First Nations peoples. Many of these slaves were prisoners taken in raids against the villages of the Fox nation, a tribe that was an ancient rival of the Miami people and their Algonquian allies. Native or panis, slaves were much easier to obtain and thus more numerous than African slaves in New France, but were less valued. The average native slave died at 18, whereas the average African slave died at 25. In 1790, the abolition movement was gaining credence in Canada; there was an incident involving a slave woman being violently abused by her slave owner on her way to being sold in the United States. The Act Against Slavery of 1793 legislated the gradual abolition of slavery: no slaves could be imported; slaves already in the province would remain enslaved until death, no new slaves could be brought into Upper Canada, and children born to female slaves would be slaves but must be freed at age 25. The Act remained in force until 1833 when the British Parliament's Slavery Abolition Act finally abolished slavery in all parts of the British Empire. Historian Marcel Trudel has discovered 4,092 recorded slaves throughout Canadian history, of which 2,692 were aboriginal people, owned mostly by the French, and 1,400 blacks owned mostly by the British, together owned by about 1,400 masters. Trudel also noted 31 marriages took place between French colonists and aboriginal slaves.
Plantations
Prior to mass settlement by their own people in the New World colonies such as English Carolina, Spanish Florida, and French Louisiana in what is now the southern United States had a plantation economy where slaves, mostly indigenous, worked on plantations. An extensive slave trade participated in by Indians themselves provided labor, affected all tribes in the area, and was at the center of the economy of the region.Spain
Slavery of Native Americans was illegal in Spain or Spanish territories. However, slavery in other contexts as an institution still existed in Spain itself, particularly Ottoman and Barbary prisoners and Muslim rebels from southern Spain following the Reconquista. The enthusiasm of Columbus for the slave trade was rejected by Isabella and Ferdinand, the Spanish monarchs. A decree issued in 1500 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella specifically forbade enslavement of natives, but there were three exceptions which were freely used by colonial Spanish authorities to evade the prohibition: cannibals ; those taken in "just wars"; and slaves purchased from other indigenous people. The need for slave labor first arose in the placer gold deposits of Cibao on Hispaniola. After the natives of Hispaniola were worked to death using the encomienda system, the other islands of the Caribbean were scoured for slaves. A shortage of labor resulting from a smallpox epidemic in 1518 resulted in an intensified search. By 1521 the islands of the northern Caribbean, such as the Bahamas inhabited by the peaceful Taíno people, were for the most part depopulated. The pearl fisheries on the coast of Venezuela was another activity which had a high attrition rate.In 1542, urged on by Friar Bartolomé de Las Casas, author of A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Charles I of Spain enacted the New Laws. By its terms it declared Indians free vassals, but, in practical terms, only made it more difficult to own and exploit slaves. Despite being technically illegal, slavery continued in Spanish America for centuries. On one hand the courts were instructed to "put special care in the good treatment and conservation of the Indians", to remain informed of any abuses committed against Indians, and "to act quickly and without delaying maliciously as has happened in the past"; on the other hand, "... Spanish masters resorted to slight changes in terminology, gray areas, and subtle reinterpretations to continue to hold Indians in bondage."
Gregorio López, one of the supporters of the New Laws, was appointed to the Council of the Indies in 1543 and undertook attempts to free the Indian slaves of Seville. Over 100 cases of Indians seeking freedom, not all successfully, are in the legal archives of Seville. Masters often contested attempts by slaves to obtain freedom; the cases could drag on for years, meanwhile, the slaves had nowhere to go and often remained in the service of their master and sometimes faced mistreatment. The use of Indian slaves in Spain itself died out by the early 17th century.
In Mexico, Peru, and other parts of Spanish America indigenous slaves were much more important economically and beneficiaries of the system were much more resilient and resourceful; indigenous slavery continued for centuries. In Peru, the Spanish emissary sent to enforce the New Laws was murdered and beheaded. In Mexico, the Spanish emissary, Francisco Tello de Sandoval, a member of the Spanish Inquisition and the Council of the Indies, agreed to suspend the laws and appeal to the King. Some concessions were made, the encomiendas were expanded, but the basic law was not modified.
Spanish movement north after discovery of vast deposits of silver in the desert regions north of the conquered Aztec Empire resulted in wars with the unconquered tribes of that region. The first, the Mixtón War, was a serious struggle, but the Spanish prevailed with the help of tens of thousands of Aztec allies. The second, the Chichimeca War, did not go well. Spanish troops were over-matched by vast numbers of naked native warriors using obsidian tipped arrows, and the treasury was exhausted by the struggle, and in the end troops were withdrawn and a peace program was employed. In both instances the exception of "just war" was employed to take thousands of slaves. Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva, first governor of the New Kingdom of León, played a prominent role in the slave trade. The silver deposits of Mexico were massive and were exploited for centuries by underground mining of hundreds of rich veins.
In Peru thousands of indigent workers were drafted to work in the silver mines of Potosí, Huancavelica, and Cailloma, a system that continued for 250 years.
According to Andrés Reséndez, author of The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America, slaving which provided labor to the silver mines of northern Mexico was a major cause of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 and other unrest among the Indians of northern Mexico. Following the reconquest of New Mexico the business of providing slaves for the New Mexico market passed into the hands of the Navajo, Utes, Comanches, and Apaches who had acquired horses and thus mobility.
In the early 18th century the market for slaves in the silver mines began to dry up and a surplus of slaves, and ex-slaves, began to build up in New Mexico. Called Genízaros, these descendants of Pawnees, Jumanos, Apaches, and Kiowas and other plains Indians once taken as slaves by the Comanches and others became distinct communities in New Mexico.
Spanish Florida
was followed by establishment of missions in what is now northern Florida and the coast of Georgia.Chile
In Chile Spanish occupation of the lands of the Mapuche was vigorously contested for 3 centuries in the Arauco War. The prescription against enslaving Indians was lifted by in 1608 Philip III of Spain for Mapuches caught in war. Mapuches "rebels" were considered Christian apostates and could therefore be enslaved according to the church teachings of the day. In reality these legal changes only formalized Mapuche slavery that was already occurring at the time, with captured Mapuches being treated as property in the way that they were bought and sold among the Spanish. Legalisation made Spanish slave raiding increasingly common in the Arauco War. Mapuche slaves were exported north to places such as La Serena and Lima in Peru. Spanish slave raiding was an underlying cause of the large Mapuche uprising of 1655.Philip III of Spain successor Philip IV of Spain changed course in the latter part of his reign and began restricting Mapuche slavery. Philip IV died without freeing the indigenous slaves of Chile but his wife Mariana of Austria, serving as regent, and his son Charles II of Spain engaged in a broad anti-slavery campaign throughout the Spanish Empire.
The anti-slavery campaign began with an order by Mariana of Austria in 1667 freeing all the Indian slaves in Peru that had been captured in Chile. Her order was met with disbelief and dismay in Peru. Without exception she freed the Indian slaves of Mexico in 1672. After receiving a plea from the Pope she freed the slaves of the southern Andes. On June 12, 1679 Charles II issued a general declaration freeing all indigenous slaves in Spanish America. In 1680 this was included in the Recopilación de las leyes de Indias, a codification of the laws of Spanish America. The Caribes, "cannibals," were the only exception. Governor Juan Enríquez of Chile resisted strongly, writing protests to the king and not publishing the decrees freeing Indian slaves. The royal anti-slavery crusade did not end indigenous slavery in Spain's American possessions, but, in addition to resulting in the freeing of thousands of slaves, it ended the involvement and facilitation by government officials of slaving by the Spanish; purchase of slaves remained possible but only from indigenous slaver such as the Caribs of Venezuela or the Comanches.
Mexico
After Mexico's independence in 1821, it did not abolish black slavery until 1829 when a hero of the insurgency, Vicente Guerrero, "el Negrito," was president. At independence, racial and caste categories were abolished. However, the revolution had disrupted the defenses at the border, the presidios, and the mining region of northern Mexico. For decades the region was subject to raids by Apaches, Kiowas, and large Comanche war parties who looted, killed and took slaves. The Comanches penetrated far into Mexico, raiding as late as the 1870s. The main object was horses, but goods and slaves, in the thousands, were also taken. In time a significant fraction of the slaving tribes came to consist of Mexicans and Mexican Indians, up to half of the Comanches. Bent's Fort, a trading post on the Santa Fe Trail, was one customer of the slavers as were Comancheros, Hispanic traders based in New Mexico who regularly traded with the Comanche and other tribes who engaged in raids into Mexico. Some border communities in Mexico itself were also in the market.Employers in Mexico, forbidden to take or use slaves, turned to debt peonage, advancing money to workers on terms that were impossible to meet. Laws were passed requiring servants to complete the terms of any contract for service.
Territories acquired by the United States from Mexico
The territories acquired from Mexico by the United States had a system of indigenous slavery and laws which supported it. Congress passed a resolution on March 3, 1865 creating the Joint Special Committee on the Condition of the Indian Tribes. After extensive investigations in the West it issued The Doolittle Report of 1867: Condition of the Indian Tribes: Report of the Joint Special Committee Appointed Under Joint Resolution of March 3, 1865. The chairman of the committee was Senator James Rood Doolittle, U.S. Senator from Wisconsin. "The report substantiated the traffic of Indian slaves and the prevalence of peonage." On June 9, 1865, at the urging of James Harlan, Secretary of the Interior, President Andrew Johnson issued a directive, "...that the authority of the Executive branch of the Government should be exercised for the effectual suppression of a practice which is alike in violation of the rights of the Indians and the provisions of the organic law of said Territory." The Commissioner of Indian Affairs was ordered to investigate the situation in New Mexico. He selected Julius K. Graves as "special agent". Graves arrived in Santa Fe December 30, 1865 and began his investigation by attending the opening of the territorial legislature. He found that both debt peonage and slavery of Indian captives were institutions of long standing in New Mexico with many influential Hispanics and Federal officials holding slaves. He pleaded for effective action.New Mexico
Debt peonage was well established in New Mexico as Americans assumed governance after the Mexican–American War as well as slaveholding by the Navajo. Indian slaves were in the households of many prominent New Mexicans, including the governor and Kit Carson. Slaves taken during Navajo removal resulted in a substantial increase to a total of several thousand. New Mexico was a territory of the United States; thus the laws implementing and enforcing slavery passed by the territorial legislature were subject to review by the Congress of the United States which, in 1860, voided them. In 1862 the U.S. House of Representatives enacted a broader law prohibiting "slavery and involuntary servitude in any of the Territories of the United States." These actions changed nothing on the ground in New Mexico where active slaving among the Navajo was in progress. The number of slaves taken dropped sharply in the 1870s.California
The Mexican secularization act of 1833 "freed" the Indians attached to the missions of California, providing for distribution of land to mission Indians and sale of remaining grazing land. Through grants and auctions the bulk of the land was transferred to wealthy Californios and other investors. Any Indians who had received land soon fell into debt peonage and became attached to the new Ranchos. The workforce was supplemented with Indians who had been captured. Immigrating Americans fell into the same pattern with varying degrees of grace; there were no black slaves and importation of Chinese as laborers was in the future. The Indian Act of 1850 authorized auctioning of Indians who were not gainfully employed. The Anti-Vagrancy Act, also known as the Greaser Act, was enacted in 1855 in California, to target those of Mexican descent, among others, by legalizing the arrest of those perceived as violating its anti-vagrancy statute. 24,000 to 27,000 California Native Americans were taken as forced laborers by settlers including 4,000 to 7,000 children;Utah
Soon after the Mormons settled at Salt Lake City they were visited by a band of Utes who insisted on trading two young slaves to them. When the Mormons were reluctant, they killed one child and began torturing the other. The Utes generally slaved among the Paiutes of the Great Basin. The Mormons, on consideration, determined that purchasing slaves was a religious duty and passed the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners in 1852 authorizing holding of purchased slaves for 20 years after purchase. Life among the Mormons was lonely for the Indian slaves. The Mormons declined to breed with them, and they were cut off from their tribes.Colorado
Scores of Navajo slaves taken by Mexican and Ute slavers during the Long Walk of the Navajo were sold into the new settlements in Costilla and Conejos Counties in what is now Colorado.Portugal
Brazil
Indigenous slavery in Brazil increased the territorial growth of Portuguese colonies in America.England
Carolina
The policy of the Proprietors of English Carolina was, "no Indian upon any occasion or pretense whatsoever is to be made a Slave, or without his own consent be carried out of Carolina." Nevertheless, Native American slaves were one of the principle exports of the Province of Carolina to Barbados and other West Indian islands during the 17th Century. It was claimed that slaves purchased from Indian slavers gave consent to work or be transported. The good intentions of the Proprietors, who were also concerned about slaving resulting in conflict with neighboring tribes, were frustrated by the possibilities for profits to colonial traders who build the foundations of substantial fortunes on Indian and African slavery.It was only in the 1750s that there was substantial migration of subsistence farmers to the Carolinas, prior to that the economy was based on plantations, manned by Indian, then, as more were imported, by African slaves. What set Carolina apart from the other English colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America was not allowing slavery, the other colonies also had some slavery at points in their history when Indian captives were available, but a substantial population of potential slaves in its hinterlands. The superiority of English trade goods over that of the competing French and Spanish played an important role in centralizing trade in Carolina.
France
Louisiana
Indigenous enslavement of indigenous peoples
In Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica the most common forms of slavery were those of prisoners of war and debtors. People unable to pay back a debt could be sentenced to work as a slave to the person owed until the debt was worked off. Slavery was not usually hereditary; children of slaves were born free.Most victims of human sacrifice were prisoners of war or slaves.
First Nations of Canada routinely captured slaves from neighboring tribes. Slave-owning tribes were Muscogee Creek of Georgia, the Pawnee and Klamath, the Caribs of Dominica, the Tupinambá of Brazil, and some fishing societies, such as the Yurok, that lived along the coast from what is now Alaska to California. The Haida, Nuu-chah-nulth, Tlingit, Coast Tsimshian and some other tribes who lived along the Pacific Northwest Coast were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as California and also among neighboring people, particularly the Coast Salish groups. Slavery was hereditary, with new slaves generally being prisoners of war or captured for the purpose of trade and status. Among some Pacific Northwest tribes about a quarter of the population were slaves.