Indians were enslaved across Mexico for centuries, despite an official ban as early as 1542. Mural by Diego Rivera.
My eye was caught by a full-on rave review of this book in the Los Angeles Times. I had just been reading about the enslavement of captive Apache women in Hutton’s “The Apache Wars.” After Mexican paramilitaries destroyed Victorio’s band at Tres Castillos in Chihuahua, the captive women were sold into slavery and concubinage in a manner that would have been recognizable to the Ancient Romans.
It is not often that a single work of history can change the course of an entire field and upset the received notions and received knowledge of the generations but that is exactly what “The Other Slavery” does. Andrés Reséndez boldly argues that slavery, not necessarily disease and misfortune, was the one part of the colonial matrix that decimated the indigenous population of North America and that the institution of this “other slavery” was the model for all others.
When we think of slavery in the New World we immediately think of the capture and sale of African slaves who were then transported to North America. But, he argues, there was another kind of slavery in the New World — “the other slavery” — that predated and outlasted the African slave trade that was in many ways more fundamental.
While the archaeological record suggests that slavery between tribes existed before the coming of Europeans, their arrival transformed it and made it so widespread as to leave no part of North America untouched. The “other slavery” shaped the shared history of Mexico and later the United States, and was so deeply entrenched that it was ignored. Because “it had no legal basis, it was never formally abolished like African slavery,” the “other slavery” continued well into the 20th century.
Reséndez apparently offers a strong argument that it was slavery rather than disease (or at least disease on its own) that set the conditions for a near extinction-level event for many native populations. I’d need to see more than a review summary to buy that, but the thesis is intriguing and makes sense.
Even if Indians did contract diseases against which they had no immunity (like Europeans did during the Plague) they would have (like the Europeans during the plague) rebounded within a few decades. The major difference between Indian and European populations was the fact that Indians were enslaved to work on gold mines and silver mines in alarming numbers beginning on Columbus’ second voyage whereas Europeans were not.
The review indicates that the book is markedly free of ideology, and also addresses the very active slave trade in which the Indians themselves — especially the Lords of the Southern Plains, the Comanche, were engaged.
Sounds like a study as deep and compelling as “War Of A Thousand Deserts” — one that needs to be on my shelf.
Keith West says
I saw this book when I was in B&N Friday night. I ended up buying The Apapche War, but this one is on my radar.
JimC says
Eager to hear your opinion on Hutton’s book. Glad you picked it up.
deuce says
From what I’ve read, slavery certainly seems to have greatly contributed to the extermination of the Caribbean tribes. That’s why black slaves had to be imported. Of course, white slaves (mostly from Ireland) were imported to the Caribbean during the 17th century. Researchers are turning up ever more evidence that “indentured servitude” in the British colonies was de facto slavery, with many “servants” simply being kidnapped. They were then worked to death or kept in bondage through insidous and byzantine legal strictures. There were plenty of “other slaveries”.
JimC says
Yes, indeed.
Traven Torsvan says
The majority of indentured servants in the new world were actually English. As for the claim that there were Irish “slaves”, that’s been repeatedly debunked https://medium.com/@Limerick1914/the-imagery-of-the-irish-slaves-myth-dissected-143e70aa6e74#.knf9x1qrj
Paul McNamee says
aside;
I think this is a very interesting excerpt from a talk in the UK; (if you didn’t see it when I posted it on Facebook)
How Slavery in the Caribbean Ended
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax3ZzQWIjqU
Not unlike the discussions of the Irish Easter Uprising … no one wants to look back and say “violence worked” but … again – more to history than we’re told or we even know.
JimC says
Yes, that is a bizarre inhibition, given that it usually does. We didn’t defeat the Axis powers through superior negotiating skills — we obliterated them. Etc., etc. etc…
Thanks for the link.
Matthew says
This is probably getting more political than we should, but National Review Online editor Jonah Goldberg included “Violence Never Solves Anything” in his book Tyranny of Cliches.
Violence has been man’s primary solution since the beginning of time. Of course, sometimes a solution to a problem is worse than the problem. Killing your roomate to get the last beer in the fridge is not a very good idea.
Matthew says
Unrelated to this topic, but Frederick Russell Burnham is the topic of a podcast at The Art of Manliness
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2016/05/23/podcast-203-the-real-life-most-interesting-man-in-the-world/
JimC says
Thanks for the heads up on this!
John C. says
On a local note, the California missions were built and maintained by “converted” tribes, who were also then responsible for all of the agriculture and stock. It was tantamount to slavery, in the guise of religious conversion. There was quite a stink when the Church canonized Serra in 2015.
“It is very offensive to canonize the person who actually enslaved, whipped, tortured and separated families and destroyed our cultural and spiritual beliefs,” said Valentin Lopez, chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. “How can that behavior be recognized as saintly behavior?”
Tens of thousands of California Indians perished under the Church’s policies of forced labor.
John C.
JimC says
Yep. That story was heavily scrubbed and sanitized when we did field trips to the missions when we were kids. It’s an UGLY story.
lane batot says
Successfully using Injuns as slaves depended a LOT on the Injuns in question! Some were more easily subjugated, others were not!! One reason they were not as popular(so I’ve read) as Africans, was that, dang thar hides, they tended to run off more, and could successfully reunite all too easily with their tribes. That whole period where many blacks also did so, by seeking asylum with the Florida Seminole, was a great thorn in the side of Southern slave holders of the times–one MAJOR reason they wanted the Seminole OUT of Florida! But thanks to the Seminoles knowledge of those nearly impenetrable swamps, they never did get them all–I read somewhere where they are officially still at war with the U. S., seeing as how they never actually surrendered! And of course the Apaches were poor choices for servants/slaves! “In the Days Of Victorio” has that great account of those Apache women escaping and walking back–from deep in Mexico–hundreds of miles to their homeland–a survival epic that would make a terrific film, me thinks! I’ve only read it in Carter’s “Watch For Me On The Mountain”, but like a lot of other things in that novel, Carter was using real historical facts(except when he was taking enormous, but wonderful, creative license!)–so I wonder if it really was a “law” that Apache slaves had to be branded with an “A” as warning to would-be-buyers JUST what they were getting into……
JimC says
The epic escape and return of Apache women is indicative of their spirit, character and love of their people and homeland. As compelling as any POW escape story ever.