Slavery in Latin America was an economic and social institution that existed in Latin America before the colonial era until its legal abolition in the newly independent states during the 19th century. However, it continued illegally in some regions into the 20th century. Slavery in Latin America began in the pre-colonial period when indigenous civilizations, including the Maya and Aztec, enslaved captives taken in war. After the conquest of Latin America by the Spanish, Portuguese and French, in the period from the 1500s to the 1800s, merchants transported approximately 12 million Africans across the Atlantic as human property. The most common routes formed what is now known as the "Triangle Trade," connecting Europe, Africa, and the Americas. From 1560 to 1850, about 4.8 million enslaved people were transported to Brazil; 4.7 million were sent to the Caribbean; The European demand for African captives in mainland Spanish America (not including Spanish-Caribbean)began during the conquest and settlement of the New World. This labor demand quickly became a part of the global forced movement of captive Africans. During the colonial period, from the 1500s to the mid-19th century, over 12.5 million captives arrived in the Americas from Africa, primarily West Central Africa. For Mainland Spanish America (not including Spanish-Caribbean), approximately 2,072,300 people endured the transoceanic and intra-American slave trades and disembarked at Atlantic-facing ports in the mainland of this region, With Spanish Central America acquiring 1.3 million enslaved Africans (Another at least 800,000 enslaved africans were later sent to mainland Spanish America through other colonies in the Americas such as Jamaica and Brazil). ; At least 388,000, or 4% of those who survived the Middle Passage, arrived directly from Africa to present day United States.
After the gradual emancipation of most black slaves, slavery continued along the Pacific coast of South America throughout the 19th century. Peruvian slave traders kidnapped Polynesians, primarily from the Marquesas Islands and Easter Island, and forced them to perform physical labour in mines and the guano industry of Peru and Chile.
Today, Latinos across the Americas have differing proportions of Native American, African, and European genetic ancestry, shaped by local historical interactions with migrants brought by the slave trade, European settlement, and indigenous Native American populations. Genetic studies show that the majority (75% or 520-560 Million people) who identify as Hispanic/Latino carry at least some degree of West and Central African ancestry.
Enslavement of the peoples of the Americas: the encomienda system Encomienda () was a labor system in Spain and its empire. It rewarded invaders with the labor of particular groups of subject people. It was first established in Spain during the Roman period but was also used following the Christian conquest of Muslim territories. It was applied on a much larger scale during Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Philippines. Subject people were considered vassals of the Spanish monarch. The Crown awarded an encomienda as a grant to a particular individual. In the conquest era of the sixteenth century, the grants were considered to be a monopoly on the labor of particular groups of Indians, held in perpetuity by the grant holder, called the encomendero, and his descendants.James Lockhart and Stuart Schwartz, Early Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press 138.
With the ouster of Christopher Columbus, the Spanish crown sent a royal governor, Fray Nicolás de Ovando, who established the formal encomienda system.Ida Altman, et al., The Early History of Greater Mexico, Pearson, 2003, p. 47 In many cases, Native Americans were forced to do hard labor and subjected to extreme punishment and death if they resisted. One conquistador, Bartolomé de las Casas, was sent to the Caribbean to conquer the land in the name of the Spanish crown. He was rewarded with an encomienda for the effort he gave in honor of the crown, but after years of seeing the poor treatment of indigenous people, he refused to allow such treatment to continue. Las Casas sailed back to Spain, asking King Ferdinand and his wife Isabella to ban Indigenous slavery. In return, he suggested the use of African slaves for the hard labor of the new farmlands in the Caribbean, as they had been enslaving their own in a continent-wide system since 700AD.[Meade, Teresa A. A History of Modern Latin America: 1800 to the Present. Chichester (U.K.): Wiley-Blackwell., 2016.] By this time, the Spanish had already been using African slaves bought from African Slaving Empires for some of their hard labor in Europe. Due to the persuasion of Las Casas, Queen Isabella of Castille forbade Indian slavery and deemed the indigenous to be "free vassals of the crown".Ida Altman, et al., The Early History of Greater Mexico, Pearson, 2003, 143 Las Casas expanded on the issue in the famous Valladolid debate. Various versions of the Leyes de Indias, or Laws of the Indies, from 1512 onwards attempted to regulate the interactions between the settlers and natives. The natives continued to fight wars for their improved treatment for hundreds of years. Both natives and Spaniards appealed to the Real Audiencias for relief under the encomienda system. This caused a greater divide between the Spanish and the lower classes of the indigenous people. According to the new laws set in place by the Spanish crown, the indigenous people gained some status, albeit still lower than Spanish citizens. This allowed the Spanish to maintain control over the indigenous people by allowing them to assume they would have some power coming from these new laws. However, these laws only tricked the indigenous people into agreeing to the encomienda system. They were allowed to live a more 'civilized' life among the Spanish but were under the impression they would eventually gain the ability to own land for themselves, which was never the intention of the Spanish citizens.
The encomienda system brought many indigenous Taíno to work in the fields and mines in exchange for Spanish protection, education, and a seasonal salary under the pretense of searching for gold and other materials. Many Spaniards took advantage of the regions now under the control of the laborious Spanish encomenderos to exploit the native population by seizing their land and wealth. It would take some time before the Native Americans revolted against their Spanish oppressors and many military campaigns before Spanish Emperor Charles V abolished the encomienda system as a form of slavery. Raphael Lemkin, coiner of the term genocide, considers Spain's abuses of the Amerindian population in the Americas to constitute cultural and even outright genocide, including the abuses of the Encomienda system. He described slavery as "cultural genocide par excellence," noting that "it is the most effective and thorough method of destroying cultures and de-socializing human beings." He considers colonists guilty due to their failure to halt the abuses of the system despite royal orders.U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: Raphael Lemkin's History of Genocide and Colonialism Recent research suggests that the spread of old-world diseases appears to have been aggravated by the extreme climatic conditions of the time and by the poor living conditions and harsh treatment of the native people under the encomienda system of New Spain. The primary death driver was work conditions that made any acquired sickness a death sentence, as workflow was expected to be maintained.
Enslaved Africans in Latin America
The African influence on Latin American culture is deeply rooted and can be seen in various aspects such as music, dance, religion, and cuisine. Despite the harsh conditions of slavery, African slaves were able to preserve their cultural traditions. By the first decades of the sixteenth century, they were commonly participating in Spain's military expeditions.
The impact of slavery on culture is incredibly apparent in Latin America. The mixing of cultures and races provides the region with a rich history
Atlantic slave trade
During the entire period of the Atlantic Slave Trade, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, in which slavery existed in the Americas, Brazil was responsible for importing 35 per cent of the slaves from Africa (4 million) while Spanish America imported about 20 per cent (2.5 million). These numbers are significantly higher than the number of slaves imported to the United States (less than 5 per cent). High death rates, an enormous number of runaway slaves and greater levels of granting slave freedom, called manumission, meant that Latin America and Caribbean societies had fewer slaves than the United States at any given time. However, they made up a higher percentage of the population throughout the colonial period. As a result of this higher percentage, the upper class of these societies constantly feared an uprising among not only slaves but Indians and the poor of all racial and ethnic groups.
It was the capital of European merchants, rather than European states, which allowed the Atlantic Slave Trade to take shape in the early sixteenth century. For example, in exchange for granting loans in support of Charles V's election as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519, the German Welser trading house was given immense privileges in the Americas by the Spanish crown, including a license to trade enslaved Africans. Over the next two decades, many other European merchants would pay the Spanish crown for the right to import Africans as slaves to the Americas, further enmeshing unfree labor as a key factor in the colonial Latin American economy. Into the eighteenth century, even as American elites began to take a role in the Atlantic trade, European-based traders remained at the heart of the slave trade. Lisbon-based traders, especially, were key to the continuation of the slave trade to Brazil in the 1700s because new forms of credit there allowed for even larger and more profitable slave voyages than had been possible before.
Slavery in practice Over 70 percent of slaves in Latin America worked on sugar cane plantations due to the importance of this crop to the economies there at the time. Slaves also worked in the production of tobacco, rice, cotton, fruit, corn, and other commodities. The majority of slaves brought to the Americas from Africa were men due to the fact plantation owners needed strength for the physical labor that was done in the fields. However, women were brought to the Caribbean islands to provide labor as well. Female slaves were often responsible for cutting cane, fertilizing plants, feeding cane stalks in mill grinders, tending garden vegetables, and looking after children. Men cut cane and worked in mills. They also worked as carpenters, blacksmiths, drivers, etc. In some cases, they were even part of the plantation's militia.
Notably, despite mining's immense importance to the colonial economy, African slaves were rarely forced to work in the mines. This was partially due to the glut of Indians, both enslaved and free, who were available to work in the mines. Through practices such as encomienda, the repartimento and mita labor drafts, and later, wage labor, Spanish colonial authorities were able to compel Indians to participate in the backbreaking labor of the silver mines. Specifically because of how labor-intensive and dangerous mining was, it would not have been nearly as profitable for Spanish elites to have forced enslaved Africans to work in the mines. If an Indian were killed or injured and no longer able to work they could be replaced by another Indian without any cost to the mine owners. However, if a slave were killed, or injured and thereby no longer able to work, that would represent a loss of capital to the slaveholder.
Slavery and the Catholic Church