Colonialism and slavery — conquest and Indigenous labour

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Hernán Cortés, 1519-21, with about 500 soldiers and Tlaxcalan allies, captured Tenochtitlan.

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Francisco Pizarro, 1532-33, captured Emperor Atahualpa at Cajamarca and seized Cuzco.

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A Spanish crown grant giving a colonist the right to demand labour and tribute from a set number of Indigenous people, nominally in exchange for protection.

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A rotational forced-labour draft, adapted from an Inca institution, most infamously used to supply workers to the Potosí silver mines.

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A system binding Indigenous workers permanently to a Spanish estate, cut off from their home community — closer to hereditary servitude than temporary labour.

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The transfer of plants, animals, people and diseases between the Americas and Europe/Africa after 1492 — maize and potatoes went east, horses and disease went west.

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Potosí (modern Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico) — Potosí silver funded much of the Spanish empire.

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A Dominican friar who campaigned against encomienda abuses; his efforts contributed to the New Laws of 1542, though colonist resistance weakened enforcement.

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A colonial racial hierarchy ranking people by ancestry: peninsulares, then criollos, then mestizos, then Indigenous people and enslaved Africans.

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An enslaved Indigenous woman who became Cortés's interpreter; historians debate whether she was a powerless victim or an agent who actively shaped events.

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Conquest → resource-hunger → forced Indigenous labour (encomienda/mita) → catastrophic population collapse from disease/overwork → colonists turn to enslaved Africans for plantation labour.

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Necessity view: no wage market existed, so coercion was practically required, and the crown tried to regulate it (New Laws 1542). Exploitation view: crown limits were routinely ignored and reforms were rolled back under colonist pressure, showing profit dominated.