CHANGES IN LABOR SYSTEMS

• chattel slavery

  • slavery in which purchaser has total ownership over the enslaved person
  • race-based and hereditary
  • before the 1400s, the african slave trade was a regular feature of trade between the mediterranean and the indian ocean networks and trans-saharan netowrks as well
  • in those networks, enslavement was not race-based and enslaved people often assimilated into the cultures where they worked
• indentured servitude


  • laborer would sign contract that boynd them to a particular work for a period of time
  • at the end of the contract, the laborer could go free
• encomienda system

  • used by spanish to divide indigenous americans among spanish settlers
  • americans forced to provide labor for spanish in exchange for food and protection
• hacienda

  • indigenous laborers forced to work fields of large plantations known as haciendas
  • amounted to a situation that was not much different than slavery
• encomienda had nothing to do with land ownership. it had everything to do with controlling the indigenous population
• hacienda centered on land ownership as the main vehicle for controlling the indigenous people