exploitation++slavery+forced+labor

=**Slavery and Forced Labour in the Spanish Empire**=

The spanish empire had a lot of slave trade going on in the americas. At first, they were looking for fortune and glory, and found other people already settled in South America. These people that conquered new lands, were called conquistadors. During the 16th century, they took over almost all of South America. They weren’t that peaceful towards the native people, and millions died, millions more injured, and even more turned into slaves. There was gold and other natural resources back there. Missions were sponsered by kings and queens. Empires were competing to be the richest, most powerful countries. Europeans thought that the natives’ weren’t civilized, and wanted them to convert to christianism.



 If people didn’t want to convert, there was trouble. Priests tried their hardest to convert, but in the end, most of them failed. The Spanish destroyed many ancient civilistions, even if they were always outnumbered by the natives. Francisco Pizzaro destroyed the Inca Empire of Peru. He had about 200 men, while the natives’ had 80,000. Hernan Cortez wiped out the Aztecs. The slaves were forced to work in gold and silver mines, and on large plantations called encomiendas.



 Spanish first took the Native Carribean people by Colombus on his voyages. The encomienda, forced labour on big plantations, was soon restricted by the New Laws in 1542. The Vallaboid debate led to the Ordiances Concerning Discovery, forbiding slavery and gave strict restrictions on the treatment of the population.



 In the late 17th century, the nomadic Indigenous people near the Sonoran missions were forced to relocate, under an excuse of ‘being educated’. They were enslaved to work as miners. Father Eusebio Francisco Kina worked hard to revieve the conditions as proscribed in the laws of the indies. It was the rights of the various indigienous.

 He opposed successfully the slavery and stopped labour in silver mines that Spaniards tried to force on the indigineous.



 http://www.historyworld.net/ wrldhis/PlainTextHistories. asp?historyid=ab49 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Spanish_Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Spanish_colonization_of_the_ Americas http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/ REFORM/EMPIRE.HTM http://www. newworldencyclopedia.org/ entry/Spanish_Empire http://mr_sedivy.tripod.com/ explor2.html http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept- dlcl/web/node/2099 http://www.angelfire.com/mac/ egmatthews/worldinfo/europe/ spainempire.html