BBC Radio: The Valladolid Debate

BBC Radio: The Valladolid Debate 
"In Reality it becomes a forced labor system", This quote encapsulates the problem that the encomienda system faced when it was implemented. Native American people that were taking part in the encomienda system were supposed to benefit from their work and reap benefits from the conquerors of their land but often found themselves subjugated and forced into brutal labor practices. Encomienda is just another colonial-era coverup for slavery by calling it something else. Indentured servitude is the most noteworthy instance of this and involved low-income individuals working for a period of time in hopes of receiving property at the end of the period. Much like encomienda, this turned out to be very similar to slavery and essentially was slavery with a different name. For the people in charge of these operations this was really beneficial to them because they could drive workers in a similar fashion to slavery and receive the same amount of labor and man-hours for minimal extra cost without any of the politics and connotations of slavery. This comes back to the concept of post-colonial low-income labor sources. How do economies flourish without the cheap labor of subjugated people? Well up to now they don't because re-branded slavery now exists in the form of low-cost factory work in 3rd world nations. Leaders in the encomienda system understood that they effectively needed slave labor but that slave labor itself wasn't an option so it took a new form. Any presudo-slave system comes to an end after revolts and uprisings, which makes people question when an uprising will bring modern-day pseudo-slave labor to an end.

    The native American people were seen "as too weak to be governed and needed to be governed on their behalf" in some part due to their depiction as a harmless and friendly people by De Las Casas. They were viewed as week and easily capturable and as such Spain and Portugal claimed dominion over the Native American people in any way they could. At one point the answer by De las Casas for ending this subjugation of the native people was to replace their work with that of black slaves. Eventually, De Las Casas took back this idea but it shows that the default idea of people at the time was to drive the economy through slave labor. The answer for the conquistadors was not to get rid of slavery but to find different and more useful slaves. This shows how deeply ingrained the concept of slavery was for so long.

    " It's liberating the Amerindians of the excessive violence of the Spanish", points to the world's view on the Spanish begin to deteriorate by early rights activists and the rest of the world. Encomienda disappeared in part of revolts and native deaths but also due to the wide-scale disapproval of the Spanish leadership in the process. It quickly became no secret how brutalized the natives were by the Spanish institution and it was this publicity on their violence that began to bring this practice to an end, of course in place of an equal evil. This goes to show that standing up for what you believe in and exposing harsh realities are a way to insight change. For modern-day working conditions to improve people need to make noise about it, as that was the only way change occurred and slavery and harsh labor practices were put to an end.

Comments

  1. Jenson EdwardsOctober 5, 2020 at 3:10 PM

    Throughout this debate you continue to hear about the struggles the indigenous people went through, how they were mistreated, and forced to do labor in the new world. The leader Las Cases can be questioned as a human rights activist and supporter for the natives. Like you said, he viewed the Native American people as too weak to be governed and wanted to replace them with black slaves, but honestly he did nothing in the end. Native populations were still abused, mistreated, or ended up dying from disease.

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