The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America
Andres Resendez, First Mariner Books, 2016
“The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation” Capital, Karl Marx
The usual story of slavery in the colonies and the U.S. is this: Plantation owners needed a steady labor supply. The use of European indentured servants was not secure enough since they had legal rights and their terms were limited. Plantation owners tried to enslave indigenous people, but they knew the land too well and could easily escape. They therefore finally turned to enslaved Africans who did not know the land and had no legal rights. This was justified by institutional racism backed up by a racist ideological campaign. Thedore Allen and others stressed the need to divide the work force along racial lines by increased oppression of Africans and “privileges” to white workers. This is detailed in The Invention of the White Race.
This picture is partially accurate as applied to the East Coast of the colonies and the U.S. However, enslavement of Indigenous people in the East was more successful than commonly understood. Many Natives captured as slaves were often transported to plantations in the Caribbean:
“between 1670 and 1720, Carolinians exported more Indians out of Charleston, South Carolina, than they imported Africans into it.”(172)
Broadening the Traditional View of Slavery
“The U.S. government had no such incentive to eliminate Indigenous slavery in the West. It therefore lingered for decades with no war to eradicate it”
The traditional history of slavery also ignores the long-term continuing coerced labor of indigenous people in the West (96). This book fills in that gap. It is an important contribution to the historical understanding of racism and labor in Mexico and especially what became the United States. The scale is vast. The author estimates that between 2.5 and 5 million Indigenous people were enslaved between 1492 and 1900. (5) In discussing “ The Other Slavery”, the author includes forms of coerced labor beyond the chattel slavery dominant in the pre-Civil War South. Chattel slavery was based on individual private ownership of slaves. In the South, slaves were generally owned for life as were their children. This book explores broader forms of involuntary labor as well under what the author calls The Other Slavery.
There were of course major differences between chattel slavery in the South and coerced labor in the West. The original 13 colonies and then the U.S. relied primarily on African chattel slavery. It laid the basis for industrial capitalism. Slavery was instrumental in the primitive accumulation of capital. The slaveocracy went from being a boost to growing industrial capitalism to being a fetter by the 1850s. This growing conflict of northern capitalism and chattel slavery was the basis of the Civil War. In contrast, except for the relatively less important role of Indian slavery on the East Coast, indigenous slavery did not initially play the important economic role in U.S. development that African slavery played. This is true even though at any given point, there may have been as many Indigenous as African slaves in the area that became the U.S. The primary contribution of Indigenous people to capital accumulation was not their labor , but their land and resources.
Indigenous slavery in Latin America played a different role. It reinforced Spanish Feudalism and Merchant Capitalism but did not immediately lead to industrial capitalist development in Latin America. The gold and silver stolen from indigenous labor reinforced the power of the Spanish empire but ultimately ended up as part of the primitive accumulation that led to capitalist development in northern Europe.
The time frame of each form of slavery explains some of this difference. African slavery was central to colonial and then U.S. development from the mid-1600s onward. The U.S. only inherited the area of intense Indigenous slavery in the West from 1848 onward. Since Indigenous slavery significantly declined by 1900, it was far less central to the U.S. economy than African slavery was. The slaveocracy in the South played a vital role in U.S. economics and politics. By the 1860s, the northern capitalists had to crush the slaveocracy to incorporate the South into industrial capitalism. The U.S. government had no such incentive to eliminate Indigenous slavery in the West. It therefore lingered for decades with no war to eradicate it.
Genocide in the West
“You will promptly attack and destroy and all grown male Indians whom you may meet.”
In fact, if anything, lingering Indigenous slavery in the West helped the U.S. government carry out its main mission in relation to natives: seizing their land and confining them to reservations. This meant that the largely progressive war against slavery in the South was not replicated in the West. The same armies that helped end slavery in the South reinforced the oppression, dispossession and genocide of Natives in the West. Those armies continued the genocidal policy against Natives that started with original colonization on the East coast.
For example, a general fighting the Apaches issued this instruction to his troops:
“You will promptly attack and destroy and all grown male Indians whom you may meet. Women and children…will be taken prisoner and will be securely guarded.”(285)
Was Abolition U.S. Policy?
“In the West, slavery or not was a tactical question while the main role was dispossession and seizure of resources”
Abolition was not a moral principle of the U.S. government. It pursued abolition when it was in the interests of capitalism, i.e. to break the power of the Southern slaveocracy. It did not pursue abolition in the West when the aim was to seize the land and resources of Natives. Though Native slavery was not a primary source of capital accumulation for capitalism in the East, the dispossession of the Natives and seizure of their land certainly was. When this process continued in the West, it became an important part of U.S. capitalist development. In the West, slavery or not was a tactical question while the main role was dispossession and seizure of resources.
For example, though California was a free state, American ranchers engaged in Native slavery:
“Mexican ranchers pioneered the other slavery in California, but American colonists readily adapted to it.” (249)
Echoing the rise of capitalism in Britain, California authorities outlawed slavery with one hand but reinforced it with the other:
Indians were free to leave their employers once their debts were paid off, but “they had to find another employer or master immediately or they were liable to be arrested and drafted into public works.” (263)
Public slavery replaced the theoretically outlawed private slavery in the California territory.
Economics prevailed over political sentiment. “In 1862, the U.S. House of Representatives enacted a broader law prohibiting ‘slavery and involuntary servitude in any of the territories of the United States’. It made “little difference in the ongoing trafficking of Indians.” (297)
“The U.S. Supreme Court opted for a narrow interpretation of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments that focused on African Americans and generally excluded Indians.” (8)
With the overthrow of Reconstruction, African Americans as well were often reduced to near-slavery conditions through Black Codes, convict leasing etc.
Although many people focus on disease as a killer of Natives, the author asserts that in the case of the Caribbean, forced labor was at least as important as a killer. “In their haste to obtain gold, the encomenderos pushed the Indians beyond the limits of survival.” (37)
Spain , Mexico and Beyond — -Religion vs. Economics
“Even as Indian slavery receded, the dispossession and oppression of Natives continued”
Much of the first Indigenous slavery in the West was under the auspices of Spain and then Mexico. In line with religion, Spanish rulers issued decrees outlawing it but the colonial administrators did all they could to thwart those proclamations. (25) (46) These proclamations while outlawing “slavery” often allowed other forms of coerced labor. These laws “pushed the slave trade further into the hands of Native intermediaries and traffickers.” (146) Sometimes slavery was disguised under debt peonage. This grew as other forms of coerced labor declined. In response to rebellion in the Spanish colonies, the monarchy allowed more encomiendas. (68)
Two forms of coerced labor were the encomiendas (grants of Indians given to Spanish overlords) and repartimientos (compulsory labor drafts). (8) The encomiendas worked differently in different parts of Mexico. In central Mexico, Natives often stayed in their villages and were subjected to labor from time to time. In the North, they were often just seized for labor. (93) Officially freed slaves were often still required to work (71). Captives in war could be virtually enslaved sometimes for a term of years (90). This was often an incentive for war. In the mines free wage labor existed alongside slavery and was often a significant portion of the work force. Some of these workers became debt peons. ( 112–13) Since slavery as such was outlawed by Spain and later Mexico, there was no legal way to abolish it.
Though this book focuses on the U.S. and Mexico:
“coerced Indian labor played a fundamental role in the mining economies of Central America, the Caribbean, Columbia, Venezuela, the Andean Region and Brazil.”(123) as Marx explained in Capital.:
“The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalised the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production. These idyllic proceedings are the chief momenta of primitive accumulation.”
“the degree of state involvement and the scale of these operations varied from place to place, they all relied on labor arrangements that ran the gamut from clear slave labor… to semi-coercive institutions and practices such as encomiendas, repartimientos, debt peonage and the mita to salaried work. Mines all across the hemisphere thus propelled the other slavery.”(124) In absolute numbers, the other slavery declined during the eighteenth century, but it also evolved and became more deeply entrenched“.”(195) It actually persisted into the 20th Century in the Southwest.
Even as Indian slavery receded, the dispossession and oppression of Natives continued. Mexico granted citizenship to Natives in 1829. The U.S. only did so in 1924!
Idealism vs. Materialism
“Even as Indian slavery receded, the dispossession and oppression of Natives continued.”
Overall, this book is an important addition to the understanding of the oppression of Native people. It highlights a chapter in history that many people do not know about. It makes clear the callousness, viciousness and inhumanity not just of the Spanish empire but the U.S. as well which has continuing repercussions for today. It is a good example of the dominance of modes of production over political proclamations. When the mode of production needs certain relations of production, those relations will win out over attempts to control them. It is only overthrowing the mode of production that can make it possible to transform politics and relations of production.
One weakness of the book is that it does not focus on resistance to colonization and slavery. It only has one full chapter on this. Despite excellent material, the author takes an idealist rather than materialist approach.:
“The main problem was conceptual. Abolitionists… believed that the nation consisted of a collection of races afflicted by different problems. Blacks were thus defined by the American system of chattel slavery. This gave abolitionists a clear target. In contrast, the condition of Indians arose from multiple factors. This…prevented abolitionists from seeing the common threads of labor oppression …”(296)
In fact, the rise and fall of slavery had material roots. African slavery in the South came into conflict with the dominant mode of production, industrial capitalism in the North. This led the capitalist class to the Civil War to dismantle the slaveocracy that limited its growth. Native slavery in the West did not contradict industrial capitalism. It reinforced the dispossession of the Natives that capitalism needed. It was only after the capitalist victory in the Indian wars and completion of dispossession that the other slavery was less needed and began to decline.
Despite these weaknesses, this book is an excellent expansion of historical understanding and well worth reading.
