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Slavery in the Spanish New World colonies
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Slavery in the Spanish colonies began with the capture and subjugation of local Native Americans. Initially, enslavement represented one means by which the Spaniards mobilized native labor. Other forms of coerced labor used were the encomienda, repartimiento and the mita. However, as these populations shrank due to imported European diseases, warfare, and famine, African slaves began to be used instead. Beginning in 1502, the enslavement of Africans in Spanish America did not officially end until 1886.
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Slavery in the Spanish colonies began with the capture and subjugation of local Native Americans. Initially, enslavement represented one means by which the Spaniards mobilized native labor. Other forms of coerced labor used were the encomienda, repartimiento and the mita. However, as these populations shrank due to imported European diseases, warfare, and famine, African slaves began to be used instead. Beginning in 1502, the enslavement of Africans in Spanish America did not officially end until 1886. Native slavery was prohibited during the first half of the sixteenth century, although some enslavement continued under the guise of just war.
Africans during the Spanish Conquest
Most of the earliest black immigrants to the Americas were born in Spain, men such as Pedro Alonso Niño, a navigator who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his first voyage, and the black colonists who helped Nicolás de Ovando form the first Spanish settlement on Hispaniola in 1502. The name of Nuflo de Olano appears in the records as that of a black slave present when Vasco Núñez de Balboa sighted the Pacific Ocean in 1513. Other blacks served with Hernán Cortés when he conquered Mexico and with Francisco Pizarro when he marched into Peru.
Estevanico, one of the survivors of the unfortunate Narváez expedition from 1527 to 1536, was a black slave. With three other survivors, he spent six years traveling overland from Texas to Sinaloa and finally Mexico City, learning several Native American languages in the process. Later, while exploring what is now New Mexico for The Seven Cities of Gold, he lost his life in a dispute with the Zuñi.
Juan Valiente, another black person, led Spaniards in a series of battles against the Araucanian people of Chile between 1540 and 1546. Although Valiente was a slave, he was rewarded with an estate near Santiago and control of several Native American villages.
Spanish enslavement of Africans
Bartolomé de las Casas (1484 - 1566) recorded the effects of slavery on the Native populations. Following what many of his contemporaries were suggesting, he initially preferred to replace Natives with African slaves to alleviate their suffering. However, he later spoke against African slavery as well once he saw it in action.
In 1501 the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, granted permission to the colonists of the Caribbean to import African slaves. Between 1502 and 1518, Spain shipped out hundreds of Spanish-born Africans, called Ladinos, to work as labourers, especially in the mines. Opponents of their enslavement cited their weak Christian faith and their penchant for escaping to the mountains or joining the Native Americans in revolt. Proponents declared that the rapid diminution of the Native American population required a consistent supply of reliable work hands. Free Spaniards were reluctant to do manual labour or to remain settled (especially after the discovery of gold on the mainland), and only slave labour could assure the economic viability of the colonies. In 1518 the first shipment of African-born slaves was sent to the West Indies. The Spaniards, although major purchasers of slaves, did not trade on the African coast until the late 1700s. However, it is estimated that 95 percent of the African slaves transported to the New world from the 15th to the 19th century were sent to Latin America and the Caribbean. In total, the Spanish colonies received about 2 million.
Spain abolished slavery in Puerto Rico in 1873 and in Cuba only in 1886. Once slavery was abolished in Cuba, legal slavery gradually came to an end in the Caribbean and the rest of the Spanish possessions.
Trade Restrictions
Spanish laws designed to protect treasure fleets from South and Central America kept the number of slaves brought to Spanish colonies very low. Flotas would depart once each year, and few ships would come in bearing slaves. These restrictive laws kept the slave populations extremely low on Cuba and Puerto Rico until the 1760s.
In 1762 the British took Havana, Cuba. During this time more than 10,000 slaves - a number that would have taken 20 years to import on other islands - were brought in to the port. This change is almost directly related to the opening of Spanish slave trade to other powers in the 18th century (see Asiento).
Perhaps due in part to the Spanish colonies' late discovery of the money to be made on slave production of sugarcane, particularly on Cuba, the Spanish colonies were among the last to make any moves to abolish slavery. While the British colonies abolished slavery completely by 1834, Cuba still hung on to the process until 1888.
See also
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