MMW 13 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Asiento, Middle Passage, Bartolomé De Las Casas
31 May 2018
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Colonialism
● Indigenous Slavery
○ Initially allowed
○ Outlawed by the Crown
■ Bartolome de las Casas (1542)
● Very influential in the debates about outlawing native slavery
● Writes about the atrocities committed against the enslaved
● He was an encomendero who became a friar
● He wanted to replace indigenous slaves with African slaves
■ Many fatalities related to slavery
■ Debate about the justification of slavery of indigenous peoples
○ Shift to African slavery
■ Most common in depopulated areas
● No native people because they all died
■ Most common in places with money economy
○ “Just war” against those that don’t submit or convert to Christianity
■ Takes place outside core areas
■ The people taken in “just wars” can be enslaved
■ Organized raids against indigenous people
● The indigenous people would retaliate and then the Spaniards
would wage “just war”
■ Stateless people were most often the victims of this
● Non agriculturalists
■ Continued into the 19th c. in some parts
■ Years of enslavement were dependent on your age
● Children 7 and under were “free” -- sent to live in a Spanish
household and most of the time treated as house slaves
○ Majority of the indigenous population not forced into slavery after the decree, but
there are pockets where natives can be legally enslaved (and they are)
● Door of No Return
○ The last door a slave left before being put on a ship to the New World
○ In a fort where slaves were held before they were sent abroad
■ Slaves were held in the fort for a time waiting for a ship
The Atlantic System (1500-1600s)
● Slavery since ancient times
● Ottoman Empire had a lot of slaves
○ Prisoners of war were enslaved
○ Slavery in the Ottoman Empire was not based on race
● Slavery in Algiers
● Slavery Before the Transatlantic Slave Trade
○ Unfree
■ Servant/forced laborer
■ Seen as a person
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