Similarities Between Slavery And Spanish Slavery

Portuguese and Spanish Slavery
Thus when Portugal and Spain established the first American colonies, they first introduced Africans as a labor source in the New World. Both encountered difficulties turning the native American people into a slave labor force. The Spanish were more successful as they encountered the settled agraian societies of the Andes and central Mexico. The Spanish engaged in a debate concerning the humanity of the Native Americans. The Native Americans were in the end turned into serfs with a status similar to slavery. Actual slavery, however, became the lot of the Africans imported from Africa. The democraphics of Latin America shows the dichotomy. Spanish colonies where the Native Americans were reduced to serfdom have
small black populations. Countries where the Native Americans were killed off, such as Brazil and the Cariibean, have substantial black populations.
Brazil
Brazil had the largest slave population in the world, substantially larger than the United States. The Portuguese who settled Brazil needed labor to work the large estates and mines in their new Brazilian colony. They turned to slavery which became central to the colonial economy. It was particularly important in the mining and sugar cane sectors. Slavery was also the mainstay in the Caribbean islands with economies centered on sugar. Estimates suggest that about 35 percent of captured Africans involved in the Atlantic slave trade were transported to Brazil. Estimates suggest that more than 3 million Africans reached Brazil, although precise numbers do not exist. Brazil had begun to turn to slavery in the 15th century as explorers began moving along the coast of Africa. With the discovery of the Americas, the Portuguese attempted to enslave the Native American population as well. This did not prove successful. The Native Americans died in large numbers, both because of slave rading, mistreatment, and the lack of resistance to European diseases. The Portuguese found captured Africans to be a valuable trading commodity as Europeans began to settle the Caribbean islands. They also began transporting Africans to their Brazilian colony. Portuguese Prime Minister Marquês de Pombal abolished slavery in Portugal (February 12, 1761). The Portuguese action, however, did not address slavery in the colonies. Slavery was widely practiced. Brazilians of all classes owned slaves. Slaves were not only owned by upper and middle class Brazilians, but also by lower class Brazilians. There were even slaves who owned other slaves.
Caribbean Sugar Islands
It was sugar that first made slavery important. The Sugar Boom developed first in Brazil. The Dutch as prt of the War for Independence/Duthch Portuguese War seized northeastern Brazil ad held it for several decades. When the Portuguese finally ousted them, they brought sugar technology to the Caribbean. The climate was perfect. Small islands that had once been of only minor importance, suddely became enormously valuable. The Europeans had, however, virtually exterminated the Native American populations (largely unintetionally through exposure to European diseases). The Spanish arrived first and decimated the Native Ameican population on first Hispsniola and then Puerto Rio and Cuba. They thus began inporting captive Africans. But the numbers of Africans were limited because the Caribbean islands did not produce very valuable crops. Sugar chaged this. Sudetly small islands which no one cared much aout becamne some of the most vluable realestate in the world. Sugar is, however, a laboe intensive crop and workers in large numbers were needed to work the new sugar plantations. he Portuguese who had focused on the coast of Africa at first dominated the slave trade. This changed as the Dutch, French, and English also began setting up West African African trading posts and entered the slave trade. They also began seizing the Spanish colonies (Jamaica and western Hispsniola--Haiti) as well as islands the Spanish had bypassed (such as Barbados, Dominica, Guadelupe, Martinique, St. Kitts, and others). The colonial powers vied for control of the smaller islands. As the sugar economies developed, a massive demand for slaves was created. Haiti became enormously valuable to France. And even small islands were extrodinarily valuable. On islsands like Barbados virually all the available land was conveted into sugar cane plantations. And their populations of these island became primarily enslaved Africans. Slavery by any definition involves brutality. But the slave system on the sugar islsands was especially brutal. It was unique in history. Many of the Caribbean sugar islands had populations that were more than 90 percent slaves. The history of slavery varied with each island having its own destinct histories. The system in some colonies such as Haiti and Jamaica was one of unbelievable bruality. The slaves were virtually worked to death. The sugar profits were so great that the planters simply purchased replcemnets from Africa. On others islands, such as Dominica, it was a milder form which allowed many slaves to purchase their freedom.
Spanish America
The Spanish were the first to implant colonies in the Ameica. First on Hispniols and then Puerto Rico amd Cuba. The slaves were at first Nsative Americans. But a comination of mistreatment and European diseases soon desimated the relatively small Native American populstions of the islands. While the Spanish colonists were decimating Native American populatuions, im Spsin Bartlomew de las Casas was leading a debate over the nature of Native Americans and how they should be treated. As the debsate raged, the colonists began importing captive Africans to enslave. The Native American populations on the mainland were much larger. They too were decimated, but not wiped out as on the islands. The Spanish colonists enslaved Native Americans, but over time through the creation of the encomienda, Native American people took on the rokles of serfs, although the difference between slsves and serfs was not great. Some Afrcans were imported as slaves, but primarily to work in the coastal lowlands of Venezuela, Colombia, Central America, Mexico, and northern Ecuador. Except for the Caribbean sugar islands, the role of slavery in Hispano-America was much less imporant than in Luso-America (Brazil). The new republics that achieved independence from Spain abolished slavery (1810s-20s). The Spanish retained possession of their Caribbean islands (Cuba and Puerto) and slavery continued there for decades.
The Guianas
Most of South America was a part of the Spanish or Portuguese colonia empire. There were three other colonial powers (England, France, and the Netherlands) which established small colonies in the northeast corner of the continent--the Guianas. These colonies were English, French, and Dutch Guiana. Guyana and Suriname are now independent. French Guiana is now part of France. These colonies were culturaly linked with the Caribban possessions of these colonial powers. The population of all three colonies, including the number of slaves was relatively limited. The pattern was basically the same, efforts to enslave native Americans failed and captive Africans were imported. Some slaves escapes and establoshed Maroon populations with the Native Americans in the interior. Eventually indetured workers were also imported from the Dutch and English colonial empires. Emancipation occurred at various times. The British led the effortv to end cthe slave trade and were the first to emsncipate the slaves. The Dutch were the last. The Dutch were particularly important because they worked out the basics of plnbtation sugar production. Details on slavery in the three colonies is available: Dutch Guiana, British Guiana, and French Guiana.
Unites States Slavery
One of the most significant institution in United States history was slavery.
Slavery helped build America. It is a major reason why America developed differently than Europe. It is also a major cause of the disparities that now exist among Americas (much greater than in Europe), and the roots of major social problems are rooted in slvevery. Two historians write that the legacy os slavery, "... remains in the history and heritage of the South that it shaped, in the culture of the North, where its memory was long denied, in the national economy for which it provided much of the foundation, and in the political and social system it prfoundly influenced." [Horton and Horton] Despite the importance of slavery in the Americam epoch, slavery until recently has been a subjected avoided by American historians. To the extent that slavery was addressed, it tended to be discussed in terms that accepted the southern myth of idelic plantation life and benign white masters struggling to deal with lazy, workers ith a child-like mentality. This has changed in recent years as historians produce more realistic treement of slavery. One area in which progress has been disappointing is school textbooks. The egregiously racist treatment has been removed from textboks, but for the most part school rextbooks still give little attention to slavery and the discussion presented is usually not illuuminating. One problem here is the economics of school textbooks and the need to meet the editorial demands of large states. Here Texas is a particular problem. American schools have attempted to deal with the racial issue bu designating February as Black History Month. Unfortunately rarely does Black History Month address slavery. Rather it generally amounts to an innoucous effort to point out Blacks who have contributed to America which do little to explain social inequities in America. The avoidance of slavery is not just a matter of white unwillingness to address slavery, but many Black
educators also seem reluctant.
African Slave Trade
The Spanish and Portuguese after desimating the Native American population turned to Africans as a work force in Brzil and the West Indies. Millions of Africans were transported across the Atlantic and sold into slavery in the Americas. Slavery in earlier epochs had no racial connotations. With the growth of the African slave trade, however, slavery in the Western mind became associated with race as with the collapse of Native American populations, it was Africans who were enslaved in huge numbers. European Christian who would not have tolerated the enslavement of other Europeans found little objection to enslaving black Africans. With the foundation of English colonies, Africans were also brought to North America. Most were set to work on the of the plantations of the American South.