Archaeologists find evidence of earliest African slaves brought to new world

University of Wisconsin-Madison via EurekAlert ^ | 31-Jan-2006 | T. Douglas Price

[SunkenCiv]

The African origin of the slaves was determined through the reading of telltale signatures locked at birth into the tooth enamel of individuals by strontium isotopes, a chemical which enters the body through the food chain as nutrients pass from bedrock through soil and water to plants and animals. The isotopes found in the teeth are an indelible signature of birthplace, as they can be directly linked to the bedrock of specific locales, giving archaeologists a powerful tool to trace the migration of individuals on the landscape.

[SunkenCiv]

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Credit: T. Douglas Price

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[SunkenCiv]

Thanks DaveLoneRanger for the link.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.

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[Mikey_1962]

Reparations from Mexico?

[SunkenCiv]

I was going to include this in the ping message, but it seemed a little too large.

Now, digging in a colonial era graveyard in one of the oldest European cities in Mexico, archaeologists have found what they believe are the oldest remains of slaves brought from Africa to the New World. The remains date between the late-16th century and the mid-17th century, not long after Columbus first set foot in the Americas... The new study, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, draws on isotope ratios found in the teeth of four individuals from among 180 burials found in a multiethnic burial ground associated with the ruins of a colonial church in Campeche, Mexico, a port city on the Yucatan Peninsula.

[SunkenCiv]

It would be nice to see similar research done on the teeth of remains of slaves held in the US, just to study whether slaves were imported directly from Africa, or bought from Caribbean slave markets. From the CSA constitution...

Section IX. 1. The importation of negroes of the African race from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.

[livius]

Spain (under Ferdinand and Isabella) forbade the enslavement of Indians in the New World very early on, probably after various educated Indians were brought back to Spain by the religious orders that had educated them and revealed themselves to be the equal of any Spaniard.

Papal bulls also forbade slavery in general; all persons who were bought (usually from Arab slave traders) were essentially indentured servants, and had to be allowed to buy their freedom or manumission had to be allowed at the discretion of their owners (usually upon death, in their wills), and they had to be allowed to marry, have families and receive religious education. The Spanish accepted the Bulls and that is why you have complicated 16th-17th century paintings in Mexican museums showing the various degrees of lineage (European, Indian and African) that were used to classify people.

For some reason, the Portuguese completely ignored the Papal Bulls and were some of the worst slave traders and abusers of African slaves in the Western hemisphere, something that still leads to problems in Brazil, which has a heritage of resentment.

[SunkenCiv]

Spain (under Ferdinand and Isabella) forbade the enslavement of Indians in the New World very early on, probably after various educated Indians were brought back to Spain by the religious orders that had educated them and revealed themselves to be the equal of any Spaniard.

Upon his return from his first voyage, Columbus sold the Spanish crown on colonization based on the native population which he portrayed as a ready slave labor force. The reason African slaves were imported by the Spanish is that disease knocked off so many of the natives so quickly. "Indians" were enslaved and forced to work in mines in Peru.

[livius]

Indians were enslaved in Peru, but that was because Peru and Chile, IIRC, were basically private ventures, and were notable for their cruelty. Shortly after Columbus' discover, the colonization funded by the Spanish crown (such as the Caribbean and Mexico) was not permitted to enslave the Indians. There were even some priests in Mexico who were punished by the Inquisition for having enslaved Indians.

[Little Ray]

In 1493 Pope Alexander VI split the new world between Spain and Portugal. It allocated territory as between Spain and Portugal, excepting only those areas already ruled by a Christian monarch or power. The lands west of the line of dermarcation were given to Spain, and to the east, to Portugal. Portugal's lot eventually included Africa and Brazil.
The Portuguese were slave traders because their part included Africa, which had plenty of tribes and nations willing to sell slaves. Most likely the Portuguese simply made the best of what their market offered.

[SunkenCiv]

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=1737&HistoryID=ab49

"It is calculated that as many as 200,000 Cubans and Spaniards die during the ten years of the war. Eventually, in 1878, peace is restored when the Spanish government promises extensive reforms including the abolition of slavery. This is granted in stages during the 1880s, but other promises are broken."

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761595536_2/Spanish_Empire.html

"The Spanish colonists tended to settle where the native population was most plentiful. These tended to be urban areas and many were sites where the Spanish had built their own city on an existing native city or town. Cortés provided a model for this when he built Mexico City over the conquered Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán. He introduced to Mexico many crops and industries familiar to Spaniards, such as sugar, silk, cattle, wheat, and cotton, and he instituted gold and silver mining and the slave trade."

[livius]

Yes, I think the Portuguese just didn't want any interruption to business. That said, they were always more difficult in dealing with Rome than the Spanish. The only time Spanish rulers were wildly disobedient was when they constantly ignored Rome's orders to knock it off on the Inquisition (around the time of Felipe II, when the Inquisition had become nothing but an obviously political hunt for Royal enemies). Rome disposes - but people do what they want.

[livius]

Yes, the Spanish brought African slaves to Mexico, but the point that I was making was that even in the case of the African slaves, once they had been bought by a Mexican, they were essentially working under the conditions of indentured servants. They were treated terribly (but so were indentured servants, even in the US), however, they had certain rights, such as the right to marry, that true chattel slaves (in the US or even in other parts of Latin America) did not have.

[SunkenCiv]

Some indentures were a way of paying off debts, and were a contract with a limited term. Indentured servitude is a form of slavery.

In parts of the antebellum cotton/tobacco belt, freedom could be purchased, and slaves might be freed at death. It was still slavery.

But that isn't the usual way of doing things in slaveholding societies.

The Spanish imposed slavery throughout the Americas, the Spanish crown knew about it and profited from it, and the Spanish ecclesiastics swept out the Precolumbian cults, burning native codices as they went.