Who Did The Spanish Use For Labor In Their Early New World Settlements?

Early Spanish settlers in the New World used enslaved Native Americans for labor.

Especially they used the enslaved people for farming and collecting gold, silver, pearls, and other precious raw materials.

However, after some time, Spanish colonizers started importing Black slaves from the African continent to the New World for the same purposes.

Most of the time, to make Native Americans their slave, Spanish settlers implemented brutal outrages on them.

For example, some Spanish tyrants even ordered enslaved Natives to wear brass tokens on their necks to impose the feeling of slavery in their minds. They treated them like animals. Often Spanish colonizers killed enslaved Natives if they refused to follow their orders.

[Did You Know? During The Early Spanish Conquests In The New World, More Than 8 Million Native Americans Lost Their Lives. In This 8 Million Population, A Large Portion Also Died Because of The Spread of Lethal Diseases]

But Why Did Spanish Settlers Had To Use Enslaved Natives For Labor?

In the New World, most of the Spanish settlers migrated to gain wealth. In this case, they needed laborers to work for them.

But the problem was – African slaves were not yet imported there, neither did the Spanish have their own population in the New World.

Therefore they had to depend upon Native Americans for labor.

Did It Benefit Them?

Natives were not that skilled, but Spanish settlers made them work showing fear.