The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America

“He [Columbus] wrote that he ‘would have sent many Indians to Castile, and they would have been sold, and they would have become instructed in our Holy Faith and our customs, and then they would have returned to their lands to teach the others.’ Yet, according to the Admiral, they stayed in the Caribbean because ‘the Indians of Española were and are the greatest wealth of the island, because they are the ones who dig, and harvest, and collect the bread and other supplies, and gather the gold from the mines, and do all the work of men and beasts alike.’”

This passage describes Columbus’s two economic plans to ensure that his voyages were profitable. After realizing that he had landed in the Americas, rather than Asia, Columbus desperately needed to figure out a way to create profits. Following the model of other European colonizers in Africa, he began to export Indigenous peoples as slaves to Spain. He believed that the payoff would be enormous. However, the Spanish monarchs at the time, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, were against the enslavement of the Indigenous peoples. As a result, Columbus changed his plan to force the Indigenous peoples to work in the mines and other endeavors on the island. Columbus’s desire for profit and fame led to the initial enslavement of the Indigenous peoples of the North American continent, a practice that would continue for centuries.

“In 1503 the crown authorized the enslavement of Indians who were cannibals—cannibalism being an especially nefarious practice that marked those who engaged in this practice as somehow less than human. In 1504 the monarchy also allowed the capture of Indians taken in ‘just wars,’ extending to the New World the doctrine that had long justified the impressment and bondage of enemies in Europe. And in 1506 the monarchs permitted the colonists to ‘ransom’ Indians who were enslaved by other Indians and whom the Spaniards could then keep as slaves—the logic being that ransomed Indians would at least become Christianized and their souls would be saved.”

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella prohibited the enslavement of Indigenous peoples in 1500. This order was followed by three exceptions that they believed were sensible. The first exception was for Indigenous people who were cannibals, or who consumed human flesh. The second exception was for Indigenous peoples taken as captives in wars or uprisings—a practice that followed the treatment of other groups, such as Muslims and Jewish people in Europe. The final exception was for Indigenous peoples who were already enslaved by other Indigenous peoples. These three exceptions enabled Spanish officials to issue licenses that would legitimize the raids of Indigenous communities thereby ensuring that these raids did not defy the Spanish monarchs’ order. Reséndez emphasizes that the Spanish monarchs’ good intentions ultimately went terribly wrong, allowing the continuation of Indigenous slavery.

“Pedro fought back. Suddenly treated as a slave, he sought out a fiscal (attorney) and sued Isabel de Herrera to recover his freedom, stop the sale of the children, and keep the family together. Pedro’s lawsuit was successful; he recovered his freedom and obtained custody of the children.”

Reséndez recounts the story of Pedro in Chapter 2. Pedro was the brother of an Indigenous woman named María. María was a concubine to a Spanish merchant named Juan Marquez. She had five children. Juan Marquez did not consider Pedro or María as his slaves. When Juan Marquez married, the situation for María and her children and Pedro deteriorated. While Juan Marquez protected them, his new wife was more interested in treating them like slaves. Upon his death, his wife sold Pedro and the children. María had also died by this point. Rather than accepting this fate, Pedro fought back under the New Laws and won. Reséndez uses Pedro’s story to highlight the uncertain status of Indigenous peoples in the mid-16th century in Spain as well as the legal options available to them.

“All over Spanish America, Indian slave owners and colonial authorities devised subtle changes in terminology and newfangled labor institutions to comply with the law in form but not in substance.”

Chapter 2 highlights how Spaniards adapted Indigenous slavery to fit the new legal environment, resulting in the creation of the other slavery. Despite the Spanish monarchy outlawing the enslavement of Indigenous peoples, the crucial role that these peoples played in the economies throughout the Americas meant Spanish colonizers could not lose them as a labor source. As such, officials, soldiers, and other Spaniards devised new systems and terminology to ensure that they were in compliance with the New Laws but still able to enslave Indigenous peoples. For example, frontier captains stopped calling their captives “‘Indian slaves,’” (75) but instead “‘rebels’ or ‘criminals’” (75). In doing so, they tried and convicted Indigenous peoples, forcing them to serve out sentences in the mines. While not called slavery, this forced labor was still a form of legal enslavement.

“‘With those halters,’ Phillips wrote, ‘they bound our arms behind us, and so coupling two and two together, they commanded us to march on through the town, and so along the country from place to place towards the city of Mexico, which is distant the space of ninety leagues [270 miles].’”

Phillips’s story provides one of the best testimonies of the Pánuco slave trade. He is describing the common method for transporting captives throughout northern Mexico. While there are limited testimonies from Indigenous victims, Phillip’s account provides some details into the conditions that they too experienced.

“The governor said that he went there looking for a suitable place to establish a fort and to locate a silver-laden ship that had reportedly capsized there. As the Spaniards were exploring the area, ‘a great quantity of Carib Indian thieves’ came out of the marshes and attacked them, according to Carvajal’s affidavit. His use of the loaded term ‘Carib,’ conjuring images of cannibalism, anticipates the tenor of his entire report. ‘And even though we required the Indians to come back in peace telling them that they would suffer no harm,’ Carvajal explains further, ‘they continued to throw arrows at us with undiminished courage, and I took some of these Indians and their women and children.’”

This passage highlights the activities conducted by frontier captains, such as Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva, to procure Indigenous slaves. Carvajal describes his foray into the Rio Grande delta in 1585-1586. He emphasized the crimes the Indigenous peoples committed against his group in his affidavit to show that he was justified in capturing them. However, he mostly made up these crimes, especially since most of captured individuals were women and children. Carvajal understand the system of enslavement he was operating within. By accusing the Indigenous peoples of crimes, he was able to sell them and not technically defy any laws.

“Governor Manso devised a legal framework to bypass the crown’s prohibition against Indian slavery. He gave out certificates that entitled the bearers to keep Apaches ‘in deposit’—not as slaves—for a specified number of years. ‘The Apaches have been irreducible enemies of our Catholic faith and of all Christians of this kingdom,’ read one of these certificates signed in Santa Fe on October 12, 1658, ‘and by virtue of this sentence they may be taken out of this kingdom [New Mexico] and kept in deposit for a period of fifteen years starting on the day when they reach twelve years of age, and at no time would they be able to come back to this kingdom.’ This particular certificate was issued for Sebastián, a seven-year old boy with big black eyes and a face scarred by smallpox.”

This passage enables provides a good sense of Parral’s gravitational pull on New Mexico. To ensure that Spanish colonists in New Mexico profited from the silver mines in Mexico, Governor Juan Manso (1656-1659) created policies that would allow Spaniards living in New Mexico to be involved in the Indigenous slave trade without defying the Spanish crown’s prohibition. The fact that this certificate was issued for a child illustrates how greed and lack of empathy for fellow human beings helped fuel Indigenous slavery.

“In Trinidad, for example, Governor Sebastián de Roteta wrote to King Charles, ‘After several pleas and predictions of the utter destruction of this island, of its poverty, and of the benefits to the Indians themselves who are much better off enslaved than eaten by the Carib Indians, and disregarding the accidents and dangers that I faced on account of such a great novelty, my resolve was to comply entirely with Your Majesty’s royal orders.’”

This excerpt from a letter written by Governor Roteta to King Charles illustrates an emerging theme in The Other Slavery: eradicating slavery is extremely challenging. Despite the Spanish monarch’s determination to end Indigenous slavery through the Spanish campaign, the enslavement of Indigenous peoples endured throughout much of the empire. The success of the campaign depended on local officials. Those who were determined to follow the crown’s orders, such as Governor Roteta, had more success in freeing Indigenous slaves than those who were in collusion with slave traders.

“The Spanish campaign also pushed the slave trade further into the hands of Native intermediaries and traffickers, whether in northern Mexico, Chile, or the llanos of Colombia and Venezuela. The crown had some power over Spanish slavers and authorities, but its control over indigenous slavers was extremely tenuous or nonexistent.”

Because of the different trajectories, it is difficult to assess the overall impact of the Spanish campaign. However, one of the unanticipated outcomes is Indigenous peoples rather than Europeans began to control the slave trade. A particularly poignant example is the Comanche Indians, which Reséndez discusses in Chapter 7. To Reséndez, this outcome illustrates that because of the multiple guises of human trafficking, there is no one solution that will end slavery. What works in one area might result in new forms of bondage in another.

“Most threatening of all was the missionaries’ capacity to torture and kill in the name of God. The worst offender was the aptly named Salvador de Guerra, a friar who terrorized the Hopi pueblos during the 1650s. Like other friars working in near-complete isolation, he lived with a concubine in spite of his vows of celibacy. He also forced the Indians to wave cotton mantas, setting minimum quotas they had to meet to avoid punishment. And when it came to fighting the Devil, Friar Guerra had few peers. Not only did he beat suspected idolaters and hechiceros, but he also soaked them with turpentine and set them on fire.”

The Pueblos growing disillusionment with Christianity is still believed to be one of the main drivers of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. Prior to the revolt, many Pueblos were drifting away from this religion. After facing famine, illness, and raids, they no longer believed that the god of the Spanish missionaries could protect them. Spanish officials grew increasingly alarmed and ordered punishments. These brutal punishments, often carried out by religious officials themselves, one of which is detailed above, further pushed Pueblos back to their traditional beliefs. Reséndez believes the religious thesis of the Pueblo Revolt cherry-picks certain episodes and personalities while deemphasizing others.

“Though generally known as the Pueblo revolt of 1680, the movement in fact spread far beyond New Mexico and came to involve not only Pueblos but also Apaches, Mansos, Conchos, Sumas, Pimas, Janos, Salineros, Tobosos, and many other groups. Some scholars refer to this multiethnic insurrection as the Great Northern Rebellion.”

The ethnic and geographic scope of the Pueblo Revolt, described above, is one piece of evidence that Reséndez uses to argue for slavery being behind the insurrection. These Indigenous groups, despite their dispersed location, had all been subjected to the slave trade due to the gravitational pull of Mexico’s silver economy. As Reséndez documents, Spanish officials and private citizens responded to the new economic opportunities presented by the silver boom by increasing their raids on Indigenous peoples. During the deepening of commercial ties between New Mexico and Mexico, few sources mention famines or epidemics, giving further credence that increased exploitation of Indigenous communities throughout the American Southwest led to the insurrection.

“Their [the Comanches] to New Mexico became signal events in the yearly calendar that mobilized the entire province. In 1761, a New Mexican friar wrote to the viceroy of Mexico:

Here the governor, alcaldes, and lieutenants gather together as many horses as they can; here is collected all the ironware possible, such as axes, hoes, wedges, picks, bridles, machetes, belduques [heavy knives used in the hide trade], and knives; here in short is gathered everything possible for trade and barter with these barbarians in exchange for deer and buffalo hides, and what is saddest, in exchange for Indian slaves, men and women, small and large, a great multitude of both sexes, for they are gold and silver and the richest treasure for the governors who gorge themselves first with the largest mouthfuls from this table, while the rest eat the crumbs.”

This excerpt from a letter between a New Mexican friar and the viceroy of Mexico clearly demonstrates the difference in the traffic of Indigenous captives between the 17th and 18th centuries. From earlier chapters, Reséndez illustrates that Spanish soldiers and private citizens clearly dominated the slave trade. Yet, the description of an annual trading fair in the letter shows a remarkable change of affairs. The Spanish authorities are going out of their way to please the Indigenous peoples since they have sought-after goods, including Indigenous captives. The Spanish authorities now have a strong reason to build diplomatic ties with some Indigenous groups.

“In hindsight it is clear that that the introduction of horses and firearms precipitated another cycle of enslavement in North America.”

Reséndez reiterates throughout Chapter 7 that the uneven spread of horses and firearms to Indigenous communities is what enabled some to amass more power and dominate the slave trade compared to others. A particularly poignant example of this is with the Ute and Paiute. The Paiute were hunter-gatherers who lived in an extremely challenging environment. The Ute, with their horses, were able to easily overpower and capture the Paiute. While slavery existed among some Indigenous peoples prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the ability of some groups to use new technology to their advantage is why Reséndez believes this new form of Indigenous power represents another cycle of enslavement in North America.

“The padres may have thought that they were ‘civilizing’ the Seris, but the opposite was equally plausible: the Seris had incorporated the missions into their way of life, as they continued to move, hunt, and gather.”

The Seris example illustrates the weakness of the Spanish missionary frontiers. For decades, Jesuits attempted to “civilize” this Indigenous group. While some Seri families chose to settle down in the missions, others retreated to difficult to access refuges, and others straddled these two worlds. The latter group is particularly interesting. These Seris stayed in the missions for some time, performing the arduous farm labor expected of them. They would also flee and plunder nearby missions and then head to their refuges. The Seris continued their hunting and gathering lifestyle but adapted it to resources introduced by the Spanish. For example, they hunted cattle (akin to deer) and plundered corn (akin to native plants). The missionaries lacked the power to convince the majority of Seris to settle in the missions and prevent them from plundering and fleeing the missions.

“There is little doubt that the colleras of the late eighteenth century were an ideal mechanism for infecting Indians from the North.”

One of the key themes in The Other Slavery is disease and slavery go hand-in-hand. The commonly held belief is that germs were the Europeans’ best weapon against Indigenous groups throughout the Americas. Most Indigenous groups did not have immunity built up to diseases commonly found in Europe. Thus, when Europeans arrived, the invisible germs they brought with them were quick to decimate Indigenous populations. Reséndez believes that this picture is more complicated. He argues that disease and slavery decimated Indigenous groups. Most of these groups were already under some form of enslavement by Europeans. It was this bondage and the conditions they faced that made them more susceptible to disease.

“A group of Apaches traveling near the Pecos River in February 1850, for example, exchanged a ten-year old boy from Saltillo for ‘one mare, one rifle, one pair of drawers, thirty small packages of powder, some bullets, and one buffalo robe.’”

By the middle of the late nineteenth century, captives were often more valuable than horses and other goods, as demonstrated by the example above. Those participating in the slave trade, including Indigenous groups, such as the Comanches and Apaches and comancheros, knew the value of different captives, which depended on background, age, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, and exploited this to maximize profits. Despite attempts over the centuries to abolish slavery, there was still a market for captives in Mexico and the American Southwest.

“Juan José Frescas and his nine-year-old son, Concepción, had been out cutting wood near Chihuahua City when a party of Indians attacked them in the summer of 1845, killing the father and taking the boy. He was ‘a blond, long-faced, chubby boy with a big nose,’ easy to recognize. For three months, the mother made inquiries, until she learned that her son was being held by a man named Juan Gutiérrez, who lived in the little town of Padillas, near Socorro, in southern New Mexico. Further investigations revealed that Gutiérrez held not only Concepción but also ‘many others because he takes part in that type of traffic.’ Gutiérrez ‘ransomed’ most of his Mexican captives from the Apaches. Other merchants, the governor of New Mexico ruefully admitted, conducted a similar traffic with Comanches and Navajos.”

Reséndez uses this case to underscore the complicitly of all ethnicities in human trafficking that flourished along the US-Mexico border. The typical image that comes to mind is Indigenous groups and Europeans and their descendants clashing at the border. Yet, the story is far more complicated than this. Many Indigenous groups also had Mexican ancestry and participated in the slave trade. Conversely, Mexican communities often bought captives from Indigenous groups. Ethnic and national loyalties mattered less in the harsh frontier environment than profits and survival.

“Indeed the Indian agent likened peonage to chattel slavery: ‘Peons, you are aware, is but another name for slaves as that term is understood in our Southern States,’ he explained in a letter to the commissioner of Indian affairs, adding that the main difference was that the peonage system was not confined to a particular ‘race of the human family,’ but applied to ‘all colors and tongues.’”

Like many westbound American settlers, James S. Calhoun, the first Indian agent of New Mexico, was shocked to find Indigenous slavery rampant throughout the American Southwest. As a southerner, Calhoun was accustomed to the enslavement of Black people. His letters provide details about the debt peonage system in New Mexico, including that owners often acquired labor from comancheros or at public auctions and haggled privately with their peons over debts and service terms. Calhoun accepted the bondage system and did little to prevent it, demonstrating the complicity of even government authorities in allowing the other slavery to continue in the US.

“Another section established the ‘apprenticeship’ of Indian minors. Any white person who wished to employ an Indian child could present himself before a justice of the peace accompanied by the ‘parents or friends’ of the minor in question, and after showing that this was a voluntary transaction, the petitioner would get custody of the child and control ‘the earnings of such minor until he or she obtained the age of majority’ (fifteen for girls and eighteen for boys).”

This passage describes a section of California’s Act for the Government and Protection of Indians of 1850. This labor law harkens back to the early colonial days. Both California and the Spanish crown declared the Indigenous peoples free but still compelled them to work. In the Indian Act of 1850 even Indigenous children were not free from labor coercion. Their employers controlled their wages and wellbeing until the apprenticeship was completed. These children were free labor for their employers.

“‘The Lord could not have devised a better plan than to have put the saints where they were to help bring about the redemption of the Lamanites and also make them a white and delightsome people,’ Young said to members of the Iron Country Missions in May 1851.”

One of the most enduring reasons white colonists and settlers gave for Indigenous enslavement was they were helping Indigenous peoples to lose their heathen roots and embrace Christianity. This argument is reflected in Brigham Young’s statement to his congregation. The Mormons believed Indigenous peoples were descendants of a tribe of Israel that God had cursed. While Mormons, including Young, were initially skeptical about Indigenous enslavement, they soon realized that enslavement would allow these individuals to redeem their heathenness.

“The total number of Indians baptized in New Mexico in the 1860s was 846, almost seven times more than in the previous decade and far more than in any other decade going all the way back to the 1690s. Fully ninety-three percent of these baptized Indians were Navajos.”

The enslavement of Navajos in the mid-to-late 19th century was a direct result of the American conquest of the West. The US government forcibly removing the Navajos to the Bosque Redondo reservation only further increased the number of Navajo captives. Slavers grabbed Navajo women and children on route to the reservation. Nearly 20% of the Navajo population was estimated to be slaves by the summer of 1865. The irony of this situation is that during this period the US was fighting a civil war over slavery.

“Abolitionists (and nineteenth century Americans more broadly) believed that the nation consisted of a collection of races afflicted by different problems. Blacks were thus defined by the American system of chattel slavery. This gave abolitionists a clear target. In contrast, the conditions of Indians arose from multiple factors, including land dispossession, removal to reservations, wanton murder at the hands of white colonists, disappearance due to illnesses to which they had no immunity, and, only in passing, enslavement.”

In this passage, Reséndez explains why it was so difficult to end Indigenous slavery. His primary reason is that it was a conceptual challenge. Americans believed the different races within the nation each had their own issue they were facing. For most, it was clear that chattel slavery impacted Black individuals. Yet, the situation with Indigenous peoples was more complex. Some of this complexity stems from geography. Americans living on the east coast did not realize the full problem of Indigenous slavery since it was less apparent on that side of the country than in the west. The issues afflicting Indigenous peoples were also numerous, making it more difficult to come up with one solution that would end the enslavement of Indigenous peoples. For this reason, the process to abolish Indigenous slavery was even more piecemeal than the process to end the enslavement of Black individuals.

“On April 26, 1967, almost as a cruel one-hundredth anniversary commemoration of the Peonage Act, the Albuquerque Journal printed a picture of a smiling field worker on its front page. At the height of the civil rights movement, the photo’s caption seemed incongruous: ‘ALLEGED SLAVE: Albernicio Gonzales, a ranch hand in western Sandoval County is suing his employer Joe Montoya for $40,000, which he alleges is due him for wages he earned at a rate of 50 cents a day for the last 33 years. Gonzales claims he was held in peonage at the ranch.’”

One of the most sobering observations in The Other Slavery is that the other slavery remains deeply entrenched both in the US and around the world. Despite numerous laws attempting to abolish slavery, including the Peonage Act of 1867 which specifically targeted debt peonage, individuals, including agricultural workers, live in bondage. While this newspaper caption is from 1967, economic peonage still exists today. The Other Slavery compels readers to ponder whether and how the other slavery will ever truly be abolished.