Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн

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Finally, of course, the chattel slavery that was introduced to America by Europeans and promoted in the Southwest by Anglo-Americans. Chattel slaves, unlike land or buildings, were simply movable pieces of property. This third system, while part of an international economy that did not always penetrate the borderlands, did share with the Spanish tradition the custom of discrimination (most Indians, especially the “wild” ones, were savages) and a belief in the slaveholder group of cultural and religious superiority. Racism, especially dark skin color denoting racial inferiority, and sexism were more prevalent among white Americans than Spaniards and Mexicans.

The European trade in Indian slaves was initiated by Columbus in 1493. Following the Italian mercantile tradition of the trading company (compañía), a small group of passive, wealthy individuals would invest in a venture in which the active partners would be shareholders. The gold seekers and/or slave traders would receive a share in the gold and/or slaves that were found or captured. Needing funds to support his New World adventures, Columbus shipped Indians to Spain where there existed a slave market that sold Africans and Muslims. The entrada or entry by slave raiders into the Caribbean followed this basic form. When the original inhabitants of the West Indies died out due to disease, warfare, and slavery, this mercantile tradition was carried to the Indian communities of Central America (about 650,000 Indians in coastal Central America were enslaved in the sixteenth century) and fringe regions south and north of central Mexico.¹²