Other Slavery, The - Hardcover

Reséndez, Andrés

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0547640986 ISBN 13: 9780547640983

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016

Synopsis

Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet, as historian Andres Resendez illuminates in The Other Slavery, it was practiced for centuries as an open secret. There was no abolitionist movement to protect the tens of thousands of natives who were kidnapped and enslaved by the conquistadors and later forced to serve as domestics for Mormons and rich Anglos, or to descend into the "mouth of hell" of eighteenth-century silver mines, where, if they didn't die quickly from cave-ins, they would die slowly from silica in their lungs. Resendez builds the incisive, original case that it was mass slavery, more than epidemics, that decimated Indian populations across North America. New evidence, including testimonies of courageous priests, rapacious merchants, Indian captives, and Anglo colonists, sheds light on Indian enslavement of other lndians. As what started as a European business passed into the hands of indigenous operators and spread like wildfire across vast tracts of the American Southwest. The Other Slavery is nothing less than a key missing piece of American history, one that changes an entire national narrative.

About this title

Review:

-Resendez corrects a blind spot in our understanding of North American history and illuminates mechanisms by which present-day versions of the practice endure.---The New Yorker

-This book is, arguably, one of the most profound contributions to North American history published since Patricia Nelson Limerick's -Legacy of Conquest- and Richard White's -The Middle Ground.- But it's not necessary to be into history to understand its power: Our world is still the world Resendez so eloquently anatomizes.- --Los Angeles Times

-No other book before has so thoroughly rleated the broad history of Indian slavery in the Americas, and not just its facts but the very reason it has been overlooked.- --San Francisco Chronicle

-Resendez is adept at untangling the intertribal slave trade, as well as the pernicious behavior of white settlers in northern California.---Philadelphia Inquirer

-With his new book, Resendez joins a small but growing group of historians reexamining the scope and nutre of slavery in the Southwest and Native America.---Santa Fe New Mexican

-The Other Slavery is an eye-opening story about the enslavement of Indians. It is well researched and well written--a tragic, but fascinating look at a little explored dark corner of New World history.- --eMissourian

-Every now and then a new book comes along that throws a switch on our historical valences and makes us see ourselves anew. The Other Slavery is one such book. Much as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee did when it first appeared in the early 1970s, Andres Resendez's carefully sifted work fundamentally reshapes our understanding of a great enduring mystery: What really accounts for the swift and tragic demise of our continent's indigenous peoples?-
--Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder and In the Kingdom of Ice

-In The Other Slavery Andres Resendez retells a vast section of Native American and North American history by putting forced labor in its multiple forms at the center. The result is a revealing, tragic, and heartbreaking history.-
--Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Stanford University

-The Other Slavery is a necessary work that occupies a loaded historical landscape; Resendez keeps a deliberate scholarly distance from the material, bringing forth evidence and constructing careful -- even conservative -- arguments. But that evidence speaks for itself, and the horrors quietly pile up.-
-- NPR.org

-We all know that Christopher Columbus and his successors enslaved the natives in the New World. Resendez (History/Univ. of California, Davis; A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca, 2009, etc.) exposes the broad brush that the -other slavery- wielded. The extinction of the indigenous peoples of America is usually written off as the effect of diseases introduced by Spanish soldiers and colonists. Not so, says the author; it took only 60 years after Columbus' discovery for a cataclysmic population collapse. They died from slavery, overwork, and famine. Resendez examines the methods of enslavement, from the 15th-century Caribbean to 19th-century California, and his approachable style eases reading difficult personal stories of slavery and cruelty. That there are so many individual stories illustrates the author's wide-ranging research. Columbus initially intended to transport Indians to Europe in a -reverse middle passage,- but he was thwarted by Ferdinand and Isabella's opposition to slavery as well as the need for labor in the mines. In 1542, the Spanish crown passed the New Laws, outlawing slavery, and procuradores, specialist lawyers, were appointed to sue for freedom of those illegally enslaved. Resendez shows how inconvenient laws were bypassed. First, the parameters of who could be enslaved were not necessarily strictly defined. While the royals insisted their people be treated as vassals, those who enslaved them just changed the nomenclature and methods. Colonists were granted encomiendas, grants of Indians to overlords, or repartimientos, compulsory labor drafts. The growth of peonage--debt slavery--provided even more slave labor. Eventually, Mexican silver mines turned to New Mexico to supply slaves, which gives the author the opportunity to provide the history of peoples in the Southwest. As the Mormons bought slaves to -civilize- them, the Spanish initially enslaved people to -Christianize- them. Both merely created an underclass. This eye-opening exposure of the abuse of the indigenous peoples of America is staggering; that the mistreatment continued into the 20th century is beyond disturbing.-
--Kirkus

-Resendez (A Land So Strange), a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, details the ways in which Native Americans were subjected to enslavement throughout the Americas. When the U.S. gained California and other southwestern territories from Mexico in 1848, it also acquired a significant number of Indian slaves who were -entrapped by a distinct brand of bondage... perpetrated by colonial Spain and inherited by Mexico.- This form of enslavement ran parallel to that endured by people of African descent throughout colonial Latin America and, Resendez argues, generated an even more disastrous population loss. He notes the ways in which the -other slavery- defies simple definitions, relating how it was so widespread and deeply rooted in the economy and society of the Americas that it lasted even longer than that of African slavery, persisting in the guise of debt peonage into the 20th century. Emphasizing the variety of experiences of unfree labor suffered over five centuries by individuals from communities as culturally diverse and geographically separate as the Maya, the Apache, and indigenous Caribbeans, Resendez vividly recounts the harrowing story of a previously little-known aspect of the histories of American slavery and of encounters between indigenes and invaders. -
-- Publisher's Weekly

-Today, with the complex and myriad effects of globalization frequently in the news, human trafficking has managed to endure. The Other Slavery both reminds and cautions: Man's inhumanity to man is still making history.-
-- Book Page

-At a time when we are struggling to come to grips with the legacy of our long-time African slavery experience, it is only right that we should also acknowledge and inform ourselves of the human tragedy endured by the indigenous people of this hemisphere from Columbus' first contact to the present.-
-- New York Journal of Books

"Resendez corrects a blind spot in our understanding of North American history and illuminates mechanisms by which present-day versions of the practice endure."--The New Yorker

"This book is, arguably, one of the most profound contributions to North American history published since Patricia Nelson Limerick's "Legacy of Conquest" and Richard White's "The Middle Ground." But it's not necessary to be into history to understand its power: Our world is still the world Resendez so eloquently anatomizes." --Los Angeles Times

"No other book before has so thoroughly rleated the broad history of Indian slavery in the Americas, and not just its facts but the very reason it has been overlooked." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Resendez is adept at untangling the intertribal slave trade, as well as the pernicious behavior of white settlers in northern California."--Philadelphia Inquirer

"With his new book, Resendez joins a small but growing group of historians reexamining the scope and nutre of slavery in the Southwest and Native America."--Santa Fe New Mexican

"The Other Slavery is an eye-opening story about the enslavement of Indians. It is well researched and well written--a tragic, but fascinating look at a little explored dark corner of New World history." --eMissourian

"Every now and then a new book comes along that throws a switch on our historical valences and makes us see ourselves anew. The Other Slavery is one such book. Much as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee did when it first appeared in the early 1970s, Andres Resendez's carefully sifted work fundamentally reshapes our understanding of a great enduring mystery: What really accounts for the swift and tragic demise of our continent's indigenous peoples?"
--Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder and In the Kingdom of Ice

"In The Other Slavery Andres Resendez retells a vast section of Native American and North American history by putting forced labor in its multiple forms at the center. The result is a revealing, tragic, and heartbreaking history."
--Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Stanford University

"The Other Slavery is a necessary work that occupies a loaded historical landscape; Resendez keeps a deliberate scholarly distance from the material, bringing forth evidence and constructing careful -- even conservative -- arguments. But that evidence speaks for itself, and the horrors quietly pile up."
-- NPR.org

"We all know that Christopher Columbus and his successors enslaved the natives in the New World. Resendez (History/Univ. of California, Davis; A Land So Strange: The Epic Journey of Cabeza de Vaca, 2009, etc.) exposes the broad brush that the "other slavery" wielded. The extinction of the indigenous peoples of America is usually written off as the effect of diseases introduced by Spanish soldiers and colonists. Not so, says the author; it took only 60 years after Columbus' discovery for a cataclysmic population collapse. They died from slavery, overwork, and famine. Resendez examines the methods of enslavement, from the 15th-century Caribbean to 19th-century California, and his approachable style eases reading difficult personal stories of slavery and cruelty. That there are so many individual stories illustrates the author's wide-ranging research. Columbus initially intended to transport Indians to Europe in a "reverse middle passage," but he was thwarted by Ferdinand and Isabella's opposition to slavery as well as the need for labor in the mines. In 1542, the Spanish crown passed the New Laws, outlawing slavery, and procuradores, specialist lawyers, were appointed to sue for freedom of those illegally enslaved. Resendez shows how inconvenient laws were bypassed. First, the parameters of who could be enslaved were not necessarily strictly defined. While the royals insisted their people be treated as vassals, those who enslaved them just changed the nomenclature and methods. Colonists were granted encomiendas, grants of Indians to overlords, or repartimientos, compulsory labor drafts. The growth of peonage--debt slavery--provided even more slave labor. Eventually, Mexican silver mines turned to New Mexico to supply slaves, which gives the author the opportunity to provide the history of peoples in the Southwest. As the Mormons bought slaves to "civilize" them, the Spanish initially enslaved people to "Christianize" them. Both merely created an underclass. This eye-opening exposure of the abuse of the indigenous peoples of America is staggering; that the mistreatment continued into the 20th century is beyond disturbing."
--Kirkus

"Resendez (A Land So Strange), a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, details the ways in which Native Americans were subjected to enslavement throughout the Americas. When the U.S. gained California and other southwestern territories from Mexico in 1848, it also acquired a significant number of Indian slaves who were "entrapped by a distinct brand of bondage... perpetrated by colonial Spain and inherited by Mexico." This form of enslavement ran parallel to that endured by people of African descent throughout colonial Latin America and, Resendez argues, generated an even more disastrous population loss. He notes the ways in which the "other slavery" defies simple definitions, relating how it was so widespread and deeply rooted in the economy and society of the Americas that it lasted even longer than that of African slavery, persisting in the guise of debt peonage into the 20th century. Emphasizing the variety of experiences of unfree labor suffered over five centuries by individuals from communities as culturally diverse and geographically separate as the Maya, the Apache, and indigenous Caribbeans, Resendez vividly recounts the harrowing story of a previously little-known aspect of the histories of American slavery and of encounters between indigenes and invaders. "
-- Publisher's Weekly

"Today, with the complex and myriad effects of globalization frequently in the news, human trafficking has managed to endure. The Other Slavery both reminds and cautions: Man's inhumanity to man is still making history."
-- Book Page

"At a time when we are struggling to come to grips with the legacy of our long-time African slavery experience, it is only right that we should also acknowledge and inform ourselves of the human tragedy endured by the indigenous people of this hemisphere from Columbus' first contact to the present."
-- New York Journal of Books

From the Back Cover:

Praise for The Other Slavery

Every now and then a new book comes along that throws a switch on our historical valences and makes us see ourselves anew. The Other Slavery is one such book. Much asBury My Heart at Wounded Knee did when it first appeared in the early 1970s, Andres Resendez s carefully sifted work fundamentally reshapes our understanding of a great enduring mystery: What really accounts for the swift and tragic demise of our continent s indigenous peoples? Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder and In the Kingdom of Ice

InThe Other SlaveryAndres Resendezretells a vast section of Native American and North American history by putting forced labor in its multiple forms at the center. The result is a revealing, tragic, and heartbreaking history. Richard White, Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Stanford University
"

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0547640986
• ISBN 13: 9780547640983
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 544