Slavery in the Americas
For most of the Middle Ages slavery was not only widespread in Europe, it involved a variety of races. Unlike later in the Americas, slavery had never been based strictly on race, and as a result, slaves were Whites, Muslims, and every other conceivable race. However, the discovery of the New World by Columbus transformed the very nature of slavery in the world. As Europeans scrambled to colonize the Americas, they needed a supply of human labor to exploit the natural resources and newly developing agriculture. While at first they simply enslaved the indigenous peoples, due to the influx of new diseases and the mortality rate associated with forced labor, the Native Americans died at an appalling rate. To replace the dwindling supply of cheap human labor, the Europeans turned to Africa and the Africans that could be procured there....
As the Europeans continued to colonize the New World, they also captured more and more Africans to use as slave labor. By the beginning of the 18th century, African slavery had become the predominant form of slavery in the Americas.
It has been estimated that there were about 50 million indigenous peoples living in the Americas in 1492. (McKay, 2011, p.476) As the Spanish colonized the New World they conquered and enslaved the native population, establishing the "encomienda system." This system allowed the Spanish to force the indigenous population into slavery in exchange for providing room and board. But because of the horrendous conditions imposed on the Native Americans, the native population "…declined from roughly 50 million in 1492 to around 9 million by 1700." (McKay, p. 478) But as the indigenous population was decimated, European…
