Review of The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America

I had the honor of being able to review The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America, written by UC Davis historian, Andrés Reséndez, for JOTWELL: Equality this past April.  The book provides an encyclopedic account of Indian slavery--including the modified forms of it that were used to get around anti-slavery laws—in the Spanish New World from Columbus up to the twentieth century.  I highly recommend this book, which is an impressive feat of legal history.  It is not an easy read by any means, either emotionally or stylistically (due to its density), but it is well worth it. 

The Requerimiento, the document early Spanish invaders recited to the indigenous peoples in Spanish upon coming into the vicinity of their settlements, itself threatens enslavement if the listener does not immediately accept the Pope and the Spanish monarchs.  However, despite teaching the document and its use in my Federal Indian Law courses,  I was still ignorant of the scope of enslavement of indigenous peoples in the New World until reading this book.  I had gained some additional exposure to the issues when researching my legal history law review article on perceptions of tribal savagery and the resulting legal restrictions on tribal self-defense, “Hostile Indian Tribes . . . Outlaws, Wolves… Bears…Grizzlies and Things Like That?” How the Second Amendment and Supreme Court Precedent Target Tribal Self-Defense.  There I had come across references to Native slavery, including an 1827 Virginia case that quoted a 1711 Virginia law under which captured Indians, if deemed to be at war with the colony, were to be taken to the West Indies and sold as slaves.  Gregory v. Baugh, 25 Va. 611, 633-34 (1827).  Despite the direct references to slavery in the Requerimiento and in cases like the aforementioned Gregory v. Baugh, I was in denial about the scope of the practice of Native enslavement until reading The Other Slavery.  Since I researched Hostile Indian Tribes in 2010, there has been other important work on Native enslavement, but the temporal breadth combined with the geographic scope of The Other Slavery make it unique.  Unless you’re already an expert on these issues, I can guarantee you that you’ll never look at Columbus the same way again.     

Comments

[anon]

How do we reconcile the seeming confusion between the well intentioned concern and affirmative action for indigenous people and bestowing these same concerns and benefits upon persons who claim to belong to the "La Raza" - which, as the legal fiction that it is, mainly breaks down, at least as the Census defines "Hispanic," to a very strange classification indeed. Such programs bestow benefits on persons originating from a Spanish speaking country (whether a white descendent of Cortez, etc., black, brown or otherwise). Does this make sense, particularly because it seems that such programs are like bestowing benefits on the descendants of slave holders in Alabama, because they come from "the South" and pronounce their "Southern sounding" names with a "Southern" accent.

[anon]

A further thought ...

Given the way that some people over pronounce Spanish words when speaking English, glorify "La Raza" (by definition, a Spanish phrase used to describe a non existent reality) and speak about "Hispanics" being entitled to affirmative action (even the white descendant, as stated above, of the "Spanish invaders"), it would be interesting to hear those who comment in this site about the Jews in Israel speak to this mind set.

Over the past few days, we've seen Jew haters ranting about the Jewish "colonialists" in Israel (presumably, no Jews lived in Israel before the "Zionists" discovered it). Why no ranting about the "Spanish invaders"? Why is every person who has a name derived from the culture of these invaders, including the direct descendants of these invaders, considered an "underprivileged minority" that deserves special consideration?

Again, indigenous people, of course. But, we all know that the term "Hispanic" is applied in the main to folks who have basically few or no connections to any community of indigenous people on this continent.

Irrational selective outrage based on Jew hate, or just another example of the absurdity that passes for thought in legal academia (where the Jews in Israel are mainly reviled and the descendants of the slave-holding, looting, culture destroying, exploiters known as teh "Spanish invaders" are elevated)?