Slavery in colonial Spanish America

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Slavery in the Spanish American viceroyalties included the enslavement, forced labor and peonage of indigenous peoples, Africans, and Asians from the late 15th to late 19th century, and its aftereffects in the 20th and 21st centuries. The economic and social institution of slavery existed throughout the Spanish Empire, including Spain itself. Initially, indigenous people were subjected to the encomienda system until the 1543 New Laws that prohibited it. This was replaced with the repartimiento system.^[1][2][3] Africans were also transported to the Americas for their labor under the race-based system of chattel slavery.^[4][5] Later, Asian people were brought to the Americas under forms of indenture and peonage to provide cheap labor to replace enslaved Africans.^[6][7][8]

People had been enslaved in what is now Spain since the times of the Roman Empire. Conquistadors were awarded with indigenous forced labor and tribute for participating in the conquest of Americas, known as encomiendas.^[1] Following the collapse of indigenous populations in the Americas, the Spanish restricted the forced labor of Native Americans with the Laws of Burgos of 1512 and the New Laws of 1542.^[9][10] Instead, the Spanish increasingly utilized enslaved people from West and Central Africa for labor on commercial plantations, as well as urban slavery in households, religious institutions, textile workshops (obrajes), and other venues.^[11][12] As the Crown barred Spaniards from directly participating in the Atlantic slave trade, the right to export slaves (the Asiento de Negros) was a major foreign policy objective of other European powers, sparking numerous European wars such as the War of Spanish Succession and the War of Jenkins' Ear. Spanish colonies ultimately received around 22% of all the Africans delivered to American shores.^[13][14] Towards the end of the Atlantic slave trade, Asian migrant workers (chinos and coolies) in colonial Mexico and Cuba were subjected to peonage and harsh labor under exploitative contracts of indenture.^[15][16][14]

In the mid-nineteenth century, when most nations in the Americas abolished chattel slavery, Cuba and Puerto Rico – the last two remaining Spanish American colonies – were among the last in the region, followed only by Brazil.^[a] Enslaved people challenged their captivity in ways that ranged from introducing non-European elements into Christianity (syncretism) to mounting alternative societies outside the plantation system (Maroons). The first open Black rebellion occurred in Spanish labour camps (plantations) in 1521.^[17] Resistance, particularly to the forced labor of indigenous people, also came from Spanish religious and legal ranks.^[18] Resistance to indigenous captivity in the Spanish colonies produced the first modern debates over the legitimacy of slavery.^[b][19][20] The struggle against slavery in the Spanish American colonies left a notable tradition of opposition that set the stage for conversations about human rights.^[21] The first speech in the Americas for the universality of human rights and against the abuses of slavery was given on Hispaniola by Antonio de Montesinos, a mere nineteen years after the Columbus' first voyage.^[22]

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