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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Because the institution of Indian slavery on the frontier continued in one form or another after the New Laws of 1542, the government made a continued effort to outlaw the enslavement of Indians. This was partly simply a struggle between the royal bureaucracy and the colonists over control of Indian labor, but it was also the position of the Church based on Christian principles. In spite of a history of legislation opposing slavery, the institution persisted in the frontier zone beyond 1800 and the colonial era.

In 1769 an emancipation proclamation was issued by the Spanish Governor of Louisiana, Alejandro “Bloody” O’Reilly, stating that all Indian slaves were to be freed upon the death of their masters, and babies of slaves were to be free at birth. That next year Spanish St. Louis, according to census data, reported that 66 Indian slaves were being held in that city, mostly women and children. Obviously, the King’s law stopped at the gates of the city, with all the area claimed by Spain from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains being untouched by the Spanish edict.¹⁸