CHAPTER II

ENSLAVEMENT BY THE SPANIARDS

     IN their attitude toward the Indians the Spaniards simply applied the theory of their time regarding slavery. The taking of slaves was then considered part of any expedition of discovery or conquest. The high authority of the Church sanctioned the institution of slavery to the extent that the leading theologians had declared all barbarous and infidel nations who shut their ears to the truths of Christianity, fair objects of rapine, captivity and slavery.¹

     The general feeling regarding the relation of the Indians to the Spaniards is well expressed by Hernando de Escalante Fontanedo, who was with Menendez in Florida as interpreter. In writing of Florida, he declared it his belief that the Indians “can never be made submissive and become Christians”; so he advocated that they all be taken, “placed on ships, and scattered throughout the various islands, and even on the Spanish Main, where they might be sold as His Majesty sells his vessels to the grandees in Spain.”²

     Given this attitude on the subject it was but natural that the enslavement of the American Indians should begin with the discovery of the Antilles,³ and that it should be

continued by the explorers on the mainland. The Spanish exploring expeditions were war expeditions in the sense that they aimed to conquer and retain for the crown the territory through which they passed. All these expeditions captured and retained Indians as slaves. Yet in some cases it might be difficult to determine whether the Indians enslaved were captives taken in actual warfare, or whether they were merely kidnapped by the expedition passing through their territory. Often the expeditions possessed the double character of a war party and a kidnapping company.

     The enslavement of the Indians by the Spaniards in the early years of occupation was legalized by a royal decree which declared the act to be in accord with the laws of God and man, and justified it on the ground that Indians could otherwise not be reclaimed from idolatry and converted to Christianity. Consistent with its assertion the home government made careful provision, in the various patents issued to the explorers, for the spiritual welfare of the enslaved Indians.

     These patents commonly made provision for the acquisition of Indian slaves. That of Ponce de Leon, February 23, 1512, authorizing his voyage of discovery and colonization, provided that the Indians on the islands he might discover should be distributed among the members of the expedition, that the discoverers should be well provided for in the first allotment of slaves, and that they should “derive whatever advantage might be secured thereby.”¹ The “cédula,” issued to Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, in 1523, authorized him to “purchase prisoners of war held as slaves

[Note: in the original text the quotation begun at the end of p. 49 is not closed.]

by the natives, to employ them on his farms and export them as he saw fit, without the payment of any duty whatever upon them; formal apportionment of the natives was expressly forbidden.¹ In the patent to Soto, also, it was required that he should carry with him “the religious and priests, who shall be appointed by us, for the instruction of the natives of that province in our holy Catholic faith.”²

     The idea of Christianizing the natives was applied to both free and slave Indians. The taking of captives by force, and then Christianizing them was the continuation of what was known as “the exercise of a just and pious doctrine against pagans and heathens,” a doctrine common to other nations as well as to Spain. The patent of Ponce de Leon, however, made no provision for Christianizing the Indians.³ His instructions from the crown required him to summon the natives by “requisition” to embrace the Catholic faith and yield to the king of Spain under threat of sword and slavery.⁴ Consequently the Spanish explorers within the present limits of the United States continued the policy of enslaving Indians pursued by their countrymen elsewhere in the New World.

     A Spanish ship sailing under Esteban Gomez, a Portuguese, in 1525, coasted along the shores of North America between Nova Scotia and Florida, seeking the northwest passage, and carried a few Indians back to Spain.¹ In April, 1528, the expedition of Pánfilo de Narvaez landed near the entrance to Tampa Bay on the west coast of Florida. From this point a portion of the expedition started into the interior. The first Indians met seemed unfriendly, and five or six of them were seized.² On one occasion, a cacique, or chief, was held prisoner.³ But supplies failed and discouragement followed, so the number of Indians taken was not great. In 1538, also, an expedition sent out by Hernando de Soto brought two natives from Florida to Cuba, where they were held to learn the Spanish language in order that they might act as guides and interpreters for the expedition of the following year.⁴

     In 1539, Soto himself landed in the Bay of Espiritu Santo in Florida for the purpose of conquest. He had served under Pizarro in Peru, and his methods were those learned from his master.⁵ To insure success all opposition must be overcome, so, with the expedition were taken blood-hounds, chains and iron collars for the catching and holding of Indian slaves.⁶ The expedition was military in nature, hence it was natural that force and conquest should precede conciliation. There is no doubt that one of the

purposes of Soto was to capture Indian slaves. He had chosen as his lieutenant, a rich resident of the town of Trinidad in Cuba, Vasco Porcallo de Figueroa, who had come to Florida with the object of obtaining Indian slaves for his estates. But slaves were not easily obtainable near the coast, so Porcallo returned home shortly after.¹ Soto himself was a slave owner. Among his possessions in Cuba were Indian slaves, whom he employed as herdsmen and in getting gold. In some cases, the Indian chiefs through whose territories Soto and his men were passing, furnished slaves. At other times, they, both men and women, were taken by force. Narrators relate the capture and distribution of such women in groups of one hundred to three hundred.² Among the captives were a queen and a cacique.³

     After the survivors of Soto’s expedition had reached Mexico, Viceroy Mendoza dispatched the Franciscan, Fray Marcos de Niza, in 1539, to inform the native tribes that an effectual stop had been put to the enslavement of the Indians. Some of the friar’s party reached Hawaikuh, the southernmost of the seven cities of Cibola. The account which the friar gave on his return, induced the viceroy to send out another expedition in the following year, 1540. The command of this was given to Francisco Vasquez de Coronado.⁴

     But Coronado did not carry out the intention of Mendoza regarding the Indians. The records of his expedition do not indicate the number of his slaves as equal to that in Soto’s expedition, yet Coronado was a man of his time, and Mendoza was ultra humanitarian. When Tiguex was conquered and plundered, March, 1541, Coronado imprisoned and made servants of all the people, one hundred and fifty men, women and children who were in it.¹

     Still other Spanish expeditions were nothing more than slave raids or kidnapping excursions. In 1520, Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon, a wealthy resident of Hispaniola, determined to send out a ship for the purpose of exploring the section north of that covered by Ponce de Leon in 1513. His caravel met among the Bahamas a second ship sent out by another resident of Hispaniola to obtain Indian slaves. The two vessels joined company, and proceeded toward the continent, which they reached June 25, 1521, in the neighborhood of the River Jordan (the present Santee or Combahee) and the cape afterward called Cabo de Santa Elena. By gifts and proffers of friendship, the Indians were lured on board, and the ships, having obtained a full cargo, set sail for Hispaniola.²

     After the collapse of Narvaez’s expedition, Cabeza de Vaca wandered through the southwest, hoping to reach Spanish settlements. As he proceeded, he met, thirty leagues from St. Miguel, a Spanish expedition coming from the south, from which the Indians were fleeing lest they be captured and held as slaves. Though this slave hunting expedition met with considerable success, its leaders, nevertheless, wished to enslave the friendly Indians who had

guided Cabeza de Vaca and his companions thither.¹ Cabeza de Vaca relates that he continued his journey to Compostella in the company, among others, of six Christians and five hundred Indian slaves.²

     Such expeditions from Mexico were continued until well into the colonial period. The Indians whom La Salle met, 1684-1688, told him they knew whites toward the west, “a cruel, wicked nation, who depopulated the country round them.”³

     It will be seen that the custom of enslaving Indians was general among the Spanish discoverers and explorers. Not to have followed such a custom would have been acting contrary to the spirit of the times. Church and State sanctioned it. The need for a servile class, and the supply of natives near at hand to meet the demand, made enslavement only a matter of course. Slavery existed among the native tribes themselves and the tribal chiefs readily furthered the policy of the Spaniards by furnishing them with additional slaves and prisoners. Consequently, when the action of the Spaniards is viewed from the moral standpoint of the time, no condemnation can be attached to their practice of enslaving the aborigines.

     Some of the Indians used by the Spanish explorers were obtained from the Indian tribes through purchase or trade. Such a method of obtaining them was advisable when the tribes were friendly and it was not politic to arouse their enmity. Prisoners and slaves, accordingly, both men and

women, were traded or presented as gifts, along with other merchandise, to the Spaniards.¹

     In all the exploring expeditions, the need of guides, interpreters, camp laborers and burden bearers was imperative. At one time, Soto possessed eight hundred Indians, given him by an Indian chief, to act as porters.² The leaders must have some means of rewarding the services of their soldiers. Gold and other desirable objects were scarce. Indian slaves helped satisfy this need. Soto had the foresight, before setting out on his journey of exploration, to provide guides, consisting of Indian slaves seized in the territory which he expected to traverse,³ and seized others to act in this capacity as occasion required.⁴ Slaves were used for the same purpose by Coronado.⁵ The women slaves were used largely as cooks and as mistresses.; Soto apportioned women slaves among his men.⁶ The narrators relate the capture and distribution of such women in groups of one hundred to three hundred.⁷ Women were sometimes given by the chiefs to the white men for this purpose, as in the case of Coronado’s expedition.⁸

     In general, the treatment of slaves must have depended upon the individual owners. It must be noted that it was

held an act of clemency on the part of the victor to enslave rather than to slaughter the captives taken in war, for, according to the ideas of the time, conquered enemies were at the disposal of the conquerors. In the case of Soto’s expedition, the treatment of the slaves appears, on the whole, to have been kind. After the death of Soto, the Spaniards decided to quit the scene of exploration. The Indian slaves could not be taken, for there was no way of transporting them, so it was decided to dismiss them, except about three hundred belonging to the leader Moscoso and some of his friends. To satisfy others who desired to take their Indians with them, Moscoso granted permission to take the slaves as far as the mouth of the river. The owners, moved by an humanitarian motive, and preferring to give up the Indians before sailing, rather than to free them at the mouth of the river to become the prey of enemies, set free five hundred men, women and children.¹ Many of them had learned to speak Spanish, had become Christians, and were so attached to their Spanish owners that they wept bitterly at the separation. This scene indicates an affection between master and slaves that would exist only with kind treatment. It has been held that Soto’s treatment of the Indians was probably better than that practiced by most of the discoverers—a treatment at least partly dictated by policy, for the Indians of the section traversed by him were superior to those of Central and South America, both in courage and perseverance.² Those Indians who continued the journey with the Spaniards were set free by the viceroy on reaching Mexico.³ In the siege of Tigeux

Coronado’s men cared for those Indians who, in trying to escape, were overcome by wounds and cold.¹ Special cases of cruelty occurred. Strict vigilance and severe punishment were necessary to prevent treachery on the part of the slaves. The cruelty of the age was expressed by throwing a lying and treacherous Indian to the dogs,² by cutting off the hands and noses of some,³ and by keeping others in chains.⁴ On the whole, however, the treatment of the slaves was probably no more cruel than that shown slaves elsewhere, nor than would be expected considering the tendency of the age, the nature of the owners, largely soldiers and adventurers, and the incapacity and disinclination of the natives for many kinds of labor.

     The manumission of slaves depended partly on the individual owners, partly on the leaders of the various expeditions. An instance of the latter kind we have already seen in the case of Moscoso freeing the slaves when quitting the scene of Soto’s expedition. But such an incident was the exception rather than the rule, for slaves were the personal property of their individual owners, and subject to their action.

     By the law of 1543, the Spanish government intended to end Indian slavery in its American dominions,⁵ but the law was ineffectual. The American possessions were too far removed for thorough control by the home government. When Spain took final possession of Louisiana, in 1769, O’Reilly discovered that the French held many Indian

slaves, and in a proclamation, which he issued in 1770, declared this to be “contrary to the wise and pious laws of Spain.” While not at once declaring these Indian, slaves to be free, he ordered that the actual proprietors should not dispose, in any manner whatever, of those whom they held, unless it were to give them their freedom, until the orders of his Majesty on the subject should be received, and further, that all owners of Indian slaves should make a declaration of name and nation of the Indians so held in slavery by them, and the price at which they valued such slaves. This proclamation was generally understood by the French settlers of upper Louisiana as emancipating all the Indian slaves; yet the latter remained in slavery, either voluntarily or otherwise. They obtained some benefit from O’Reilly’s decree, however, for when they escaped they were not returned to slavery, and when they sued for their freedom they received it. Thus, in 1786, Governor Miró, in a case that came before him from St. Louis, rendered a judgment that liberated several such slaves. This judgment reminded Lieutenant Governor Cruzat that the ordinance of O’Reilly was not being obeyed, so in June, 1787, he issued a proclamation that Indians could not be held in slavery under the ordinance of 1770, and declared that he “judged it expedient to repeat the aforesaid ordinance, so that the public might know its tenor in order to conform to it.” Accordingly the said ordinance was ordered to be read, published and posted in the customary places. No order on this subject was received from the king, so Baron Carondelet, 1794, ordered two Indian slaves to abide with their masters until the royal will was expressed. In the same year, however, he ordered another Indian slave to be released.¹

     It is evident, therefore, that it was not through direct executive decree that Indian slavery passed out of existence in Spanish territory within the present limits of the United States. In fact, from the instance cited in connection with Louisiana, it is seen that it did not pass out of existence until after the colonial period. Certain causes, however, contributed to its decline. Great number of Indians could be hired, at very small wages, to perform labor of any extent.¹ Still another cause, which was less effective perhaps in Spanish territory than in that of France and England, was the use of negro slaves. The labor of the blacks was early found to be more profitable than that of the Indians, and as early as the founding of St. Augustine, Menendez imported into Florida five hundred negro slaves. Otherwise, “the labor of building that town would have fallen on the white men, and on the Indians whom he could impress.”²

     From the earliest days of Spanish occupancy, the spiritual welfare of the Indians was of much concern to the Spanish Church and State. The materialization of such an interest was largely accomplished by the establishment of missions throughout the Spanish territory from Florida to California, chiefly through the labors of the Franciscans. The endeavors of the missionaries resulted in the establishment by 1615 of twenty missions in Florida and the dependent coast region. By 1655, the Christian Indian population of northern Florida and the Georgia coast was estimated at 26,000.³ By 1630, there were more than 60,000

“converts” in the Pueblo missions of New Mexico and Arizona.¹ In California, the missions, the first of which was founded at San Diego in 1769, continued in a fairly prosperous condition until 1834.²

     These large numbers of barbarian neophytes were presided over in each of the missions by a very small number of monks who directed the religious and industrial activities of their Indian charges. It was necessary that a mission should be self-supporting. The Indians gathered at these centers voluntarily, and submitted to the routine life of the missions. But the natives were ignorant and incapable, and the monks were in consequence the directing and guiding force among a population which responded in a mechanical sort of way. The natural result was that the mission life developed into a kind of slavery. The life of a California mission, though of later date, and more fully developed than the earlier missions of colonial times, affords a picture of the general condition of affairs.

     The Indians constructed the buildings, planted and cultivated the fruit trees and vineyards, tended the cattle, made pottery, wove cloths and performed, in fact, all the manual labor that was necessarily required in an extensive colony. In return, they received food, clothing and lodging, were instructed in the Church doctrines and observances, and were taught dancing and music and occasionally the rudiments of reading, writing and arithmetic. Their life was a regular routine, and though material comfort was generally in evidence, still the Indian neophytes were never allowed to act on their own initiative. Beyond their existence from day to day, they received no pecuniary reward for their labors, any more than if they had been slaves.³

     The Indians of the missions were generally tractable, but occasionally the desire for their former life of freedom brought reaction and rebellions; or, incited and aided by the wild tribes, they rose and destroyed the missions. The revolt of the Pima in 1750 is a case in point.¹

     The “alcaldes,” or local officials to whom the king had entrusted the protection of the Indians, instead of protecting them, preyed upon them for their own profit. These men, like many of the colonists themselves, were often of an inferior class, and too far from the central government to feel any special fear at disobeying the laws that the home government might make with regard to the natives. Accordingly the Indians were often induced to run into debt, and had in consequence to mortgage or sell whatever property they possessed. They thus became subject to whatever impositions the officials chose to put upon them.² In 1792, Fray Juan Agustin de Morfi complained to the viceroy of New Spain that from each pueblo in their respective jurisdictions, the “alcaldes” in Texas were accustomed to levy weekly contributions of produce; that they required the Indians to perform free labor upon their estates; that they demanded heavy tolls from each pueblo at harvest time; that the Indian women were forced to grind the “alcaldes’” grain; that some officials required tithes of fleeces and compelled the Indians to weave them; and that the Indians had to serve as mule drivers and care for the animals of the “alcaldes.”³ The attitude of the “alcaldes” toward the Indians, furthermore, was repeated by the officials of the “presidios,” or frontier posts.⁴

     The same method of obtaining cheap labor was followed by the colonists. Frequent raids were made upon the “rancherías,” or Indian settlements, to secure agricultural workers, herdsmen and domestic servants. Children were usually in demand, but adults also were taken. The practice continued, indeed, until late in the eighteenth century.¹