Review The new book 'The Other Slavery' will make you rethink American history

[bemildred]

It is not often that a single work of history can change the course of an entire field and upset the received notions and received knowledge of the generations but that is exactly what "The Other Slavery" does. Andrés Reséndez boldly argues that slavery, not necessarily disease and misfortune, was the one part of the colonial matrix that decimated the indigenous population of North America and that the institution of this “other slavery” was the model for all others.

When we think of slavery in the New World we immediately think of the capture and sale of African slaves who were then transported to North America. But, he argues, there was another kind of slavery in the New World — “the other slavery” — that predated and outlasted the African slave trade that was in many ways more fundamental.

While the archaeological record suggests that slavery between tribes existed before the coming of Europeans, their arrival transformed it and made it so widespread as to leave no part of North America untouched. The “other slavery” shaped the shared history of Mexico and later the United States, and was so deeply entrenched that it was ignored. Because “it had no legal basis, it was never formally abolished like African slavery,” the "other slavery" continued well into the 20th century.

Reséndez launches his thesis with a bang that might (and probably should) upset the most widely held idea about the colonization of the New World: That as bad as the Spanish, Portuguese and later the English were, most Indians died from diseases against which most had no immunity, which was no one’s fault. It’s the “no harm no foul” approach to colonization.

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-native-american-slavery-20160505-snap-story.html#nt=oft07a-2gp1

And guess what? It is still going on.

[mr clean]

1. Good book,

I always believed that there have always been slavery, every culture has done it.

[bemildred]

2. It is quite difficult to get filthy rich without some form of racket.

Take a good look at them all, the rich, it is not a pretty picture.

[2naSalit]

3. As well as

South and Central Americas... there's a lot of 'splainin' to do on that issue.

[Igel]

4. "No hurt, no foul"?

Not quite. More like "ignorance confers lack of intent."

One problem is that first contact usually was brief, and disease would have spread faster inland than the first contactors.

Take n. America. Spanish explorers went along the southern coast decades before Brits settled hundreds of miles to the north. They didn't stay in a given place for months. Odds are some diseases moved far inland a century before Europeans did. Horses certainly spread ahead of Europeans.

[bemildred]

5. Chapter 1: Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:

They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus.

Columbus wrote:

As soon as I arrived in the Indies, on the first Island which I found, I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts.

http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncol1.html