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

Henry W. Halleck, the Secretary of State of California, formalized Montgomery’s 1846 proclamation with the certificate and pass system. He passed this order in 1847. As part of the order, employers issued certificates of employment to their Indigenous workers. If these workers wanted to visit family or friends elsewhere in the state, their employers had to issue them a pass. Halleck stated that any Indigenous individual found without a certificate or pass “will be liable to arrest as a horse thief, and if, on being brought before a civil Magistrate, he fail[s] to give a satisfactory account of himself, he will be subjected to trial and punishment” (264). Together these certificates and passes enabled local authorities to control the movement of the Indigenous population in California and further formalize the debt peonage system in the state.

In describing this act, Reséndez states, “as usual, this benign-sounding law was not what it purported to be” (264). The legislation contained 20 sections and contained “something for everyone who wished to exploit the Natives of California” (264). There were sections allowing free Indigenous child labor couched as “apprenticeships,” prohibiting the sale of alcohol to Indigenous peoples and prohibiting Indigenous peoples from loitering. The Indian Act of 1850, alongside the 1846 proclamation and the 1847 certificate and pass system, were akin to the Spanish crown’s attempts to abolish slavery. While these various laws and proclamations declared Indigenous peoples free, they all still forced them to work. Thus, further ensnaring Indigenous peoples in centuries of the other slavery.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, merchants based in northern and central Mexico who made a living trading with Indigenous groups, such as the Comanche, were known as comancheros. These merchants “made the purchase of Indian, Mexican, and Anglo-American captives a regular part of their overall commercial activities” (228-9), with some even specializing in human trafficking. While the comancheros sometimes acted as intermediaries between captives’ families and their Indigenous captors, the merchants often bought the captives and resold them at higher prices. Many claimed they acquired captives because of “their compassion for fellow Christians stranded among heathens” (229). Despite this pious posturing, these captives now became the property of the comancheros, who could then negotiate ransoms with captives’ families or resell them.

Cuadrilla is the Spanish term used to describe the team of Indigenous peoples forced to help a Spanish colonist mine for the gold. The team comprised of “‘digging’ Indians” (32) and “‘washing’ Indians’” (33). The diggers were typically men who dug the initial trenches and transported the dirt to streams. Depending on the size of the team, other laborers, called “carriers” (33), carried the dirt. The Indigenous men carried these dirt loads, which often weighed 60-90 pounds, on their backs. This back-breaking labor resulted in sores covering the men’s backs and shoulders. These sores were like those found on beasts of burden that were forced to carry excessive weight. The washers were typically women, who panned the dirt in streams in search of gold dust. Thousands of pounds of dirt often led to just a few grains of gold.

Debt peonage came into existence under Spanish colonial rule in the US starting in the late 1500s. Despite the Spanish crown abolishing Indigenous slavery in 1542, prohibiting new encomiendas in 1673, and phasing out repartimientos after 1777, Spanish colonists still needed labor for the mines and other endeavors. To bind workers to their properties and businesses, they would offer them, many of whom were Indigenous, credit. Individuals with loans could not leave their employer until they paid off the debt. However, often these loans bound individuals to a lifetime of servitude, known as the system of debt peonage. This system became especially prominent in Mexico and the American Southwest, where numerous laws and campaigns failed to combat it. To Reséndez, debt peonage demonstrates the adaptability and staying power of the other slavery.

Nicolás de Ovando was the first to apply and legalize the encomienda system on the North American continent. An encomienda, which comes from the Spanish verb encomendar, meaning to entrust, comprised a grant by the Spanish crown to a colonist. The grant included a set number of Indigenous peoples. Under this system, the colonist exacted tribute from the Indigenous peoples. The colonist (also known as the encomendero) had to pay the Indigenous peoples one gold peso per year if they worked the mines. This ridiculously low wage allowed the Spanish to argue that the Indigenous peoples were not slaves. The Indigenous peoples were also not supposed to work more than six months of the year in the mines, but most worked far more than this. The colonists were also supposed to protect them and teach them the Christian faith. The encomienda system was designed to meet the needs of the early gold mines. Although Ovando intended for this system to protect the Indigenous communities, the system became a form of enslavement.

Congress created this committee on March 3, 1865. The committee’s objective was to investigate the treatment of Indigenous peoples by US military and civil authorities. The taskforce was small considering the gargantuan task at hand. Nonetheless, the committee called upon numerous individuals to testify, including military agents, Indian agents, and others with knowledge of Indigenous affairs. The committee amassed hundreds of pages of documents. Committee members also toured western states. The committee-produced report was only 10 pages but included a 500-page appendix of testimonies and documents. It lacked concrete proposals, but it did prove the existence of Indigenous slave tracking and the prevalence of peonage. The most critical aspect of this report is that it demonstrated for the first time to many easterners and politicians that there are other forms of bondage.

Anthropologist Robbie Ethridge coined the term “militaristic slaving societies” to describe groups, like the Comanches and Utes in Chapter 7, who became major suppliers of Indigenous captives to the Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries through constant battles and raids. Many researchers argue that this practice represents Indigenous power because these Indigenous groups were adapting to the European slave trade and finding ways to profit from it. Becoming a militaristic slaving society allowed them to retain control within their homelands. Reséndez cautions readers about placing too much emphasis on Indigenous power because it hides that Europeans, in turn, adapted to this new circumstance and created new enslavement practices.

To Reséndez, it is impossible to have one simple definition of Indigenous slavery. Indigenous slavery was initially legal during the colonial period, meaning records clearly labeled these victims as slaves. After the Spanish crown prohibited the enslavement of Indigenous peoples, owners used a variety of tactics, such as encomiendas and debt peonage, to get around the law. Enslaved Indigenous peoples faced variable labor practices. Four traits ensure these practices are akin to enslavement, including “forcible removal of the victims from one place to another, inability to leave the workplace, violence or threat of violence to compel them to work, and nominal or no pay” (10). Because of the focus on Indigenous over African slaves and the variable labor practices faced by Indigenous peoples, Reséndez uses the term “other slavery” in this book.

Indigenous peoples who came to the silver mines in Mexico on their own volition were given a salary and allowed to collect silver ores, which they termed pepena. Colonial officials permitted the Indigenous peoples to sell the pepena on the black market or attempt to refine it into pure silver. The pepena system existed in mines throughout Mexico illustrating the extraordinary concessions mine owners offered to attract workers. Reséndez emphasizes that this system does not replace coerced laborers.

Reséndez notes that “the word ‘presidio’ captures the dual purpose of garrison and prison” (205). Presidios have been used for hundreds of years since the Roman times. They are both military establishments founded in frontier areas and sites where convicts served out their prison sentence. The present-day Spanish word presidario means prisoner rather than soldier. Because they were underpaid, soldiers who worked at the presidio (called presidial solders) supplemented their income by turning the presidios into supply centers for captives. The Seris were one of the first Indigenous groups to experience the transition from a military to presidial frontier.

The Recopilación de las leyes de Indias represents a compilation of laws intended to abolish slavery in the Spanish colonies. It required decades of work before its publication in 1680. One section of the Recopilación prohibits the enslavement of Indigenous peoples under all circumstances, including wars or ransoms. The monarchs, however, did consent “on occasion to the enslavement of some of their most recalcitrant subjects” (137). As such, the Recopilación excluded two Indigenous groups: the inhabitants of the island of Mindanao in the Philippines because they were practicing Muslims, and the Carib Indians, who were believed to be cannibals.

The Spanish monarchy created the repartimiento system as a result of the New Laws making it difficult to use Indigenous peoples as sources of mine labor. This system still considered Indigenous peoples to be free; however they had to work for their own sustenance. Like the encomienda system, the repartimiento system distributed Indigenous peoples to mines. Colonists could claim that the Indigenous peoples were “unemployed or ‘lazy’ (70)” and round them up and distribute them to miners.

San Pedro de la Conquista del Pitic was the first presidio established in the Seri homeland. Establishing security in the region was the intended purpose of this presidio. However, a surprise inspection by a Mexico City lawyer six years after its opening demonstrated that it was a “microcosm of coercion and enslavement” (206). Most of the Indigenous peoples held in the presidio had not been granted proper criminal proceedings. They were also accused of trumped-up charges, many of which could not be validated. These individuals and their families, even those considered “free,” were forced to work from morning until evening. While the Indigenous peoples should have been working around the presidio itself, most worked either at the governor’s nearby manor, in the nearby mines, or made products for sale. The Mexico City lawyer shut this presidio down, but the one built in its place was even more catastrophic for the Seri community.