Understanding Slavery

Understanding Slavery

Homework Understanding Slavery 06.10.08

Spanish Main ( 1516- 1880) :

In the 1500s century a Catholic monk stopped the fight of enslaved Native Americans in Spanish America.

There was a great need for labor in Latin America e.g. in the gold and silver mines, as well as on the cattle ranches and above all on the plantations.

The Indians couldn’t stand the terrible working conditions, because of foreign illnesses from Europe.

So the monk introduced better treatments for the Indians that made the slave owners look for other slaves elsewhere.

But this act caused horrible consequences for the Africans, who then got enslaved. So the import of slaves from Africa began.

North America (Pre-Columbian 1865) :

Several Native American tribes were the first slave owners in North America. Then, in the 1860s, the white European-Americans enslaved people from Africa who then had to work on their plantations in the American South and were in servitude for their whole life! In contrast African slaves in Europe, however,got free after several years of work. They were called indentured servants.

In America the gap between slaves and slave owners got bigger and bigger, because the masters had total power and could even kill the slaves.

In the 1865 the slavery in the United States ended, because of President Abraham Lincoln who issued the Emancipation Proclamation.( → declares the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America)

Nina and Alissa