Indian slavery - Definition and Overview

Indian slavery was a practice of the Spanish from the earliest days on the Caribbean islands they first settled. One of the first localities for intensive use of slaves was the gold mines of Hispaniola. This resulted in the extermination of Native Americans on most of the islands. A very few mixed-blood survivors remain, especially on Jamaica, and are called Maroons as do some mixed blood surviors of the Arawak on Cuba. Some Carib survive on Dominica.

Indian slavery was also practiced by the English in the Carolinas who sold Native American captives into slavery on the English plantations in the Caribbean.

Enslaved Native Americans generally died after a short time in the conditions of plantation slavery. Life was difficult on the plantation, much work was insisted on by the Europeans. The work was hard and strenuous, often with little food or nutrients. Native Americans also commonly died from diseases brought by the Europeans, which their bodies were not immune to nor could they fight off.

Many Native American tribes did enslave small numbers of captives and in the southwestern United States a few of them were sold to local Hispanic residents. In at least one instance in the San Luis Valley of Colorado a female household slave continued in her status long after the Emancipation Proclamation.