1.5: Labor, Slavery, and Caste System in New Spain

1. In what ways did slavery change once Europeans got involved in the slave trade?

• system of bondage changed

• slaves where now inheritable

• Once Europeans got involved, all these things changed. Children inherit the bondage, no rights, and it was a lifelong thing

1. Where and what did Europeans trade with Africans at the outset of the slave trade?

GUNS

1. How was slavery justified in the minds of white Europeans?

they dehumanized them, said they were not humans

1. What was the encomienda system?

system to which leading men were granted a piece of land and the natives became the labor force

justified through religion

requerimiento

• a legal declaration issued by the Spanish Crown in 1513, aimed at justifying their conquest and colonization of the Americas by asserting their divine right to the land and subjugating the indigenous populations.

1. Why didn’t indigenous people make good slaves?

Natives kept dying from European disease and they knew the land

Why were Africans better?

Because they were more immune and didnt know the land

1. What was the caste system used in the Spanish Americas?

new social order based on racial acestory, lower you were higher your taxes

Peninsulares

born in spain on penninsula

Criollos

were spanish but born in america

Mestizos

were spanish and native

Mulattoes

Spanish and african

Africans and Native Americans

lowest on caste system