Valentin Gutierrez AMDG
Mrs. Hochman
Period 5
5/23/13

When the Spanish were building their empires in the newly discovered world of the Americas, they were using the native people that they came across as slaves. The Spanish forced the indigenous population to work in the mines and the plantations that they were developing. The Spanish caused the indigenous population of the Americas to decrease for many reasons. Many died of diseases such as measles and the flu. The body of the natives was completely vulnerable to these diseases because they never came across it and didn’t have a clue on how to combat it. By 1500s, it is estimated that there were about 50 million natives in the Americas. By 1600, after 100 years of European warfare, disease and forced labor, the indigenous population dropped to an estimated 8 million people. New laws made by the Spanish in 1542 put an end to them being taken as slaves. The natives could no longer work in mines and on the land. Instead, a new system was introduced called the encomienda system. Under this system, the natives would only do a reasonable amount of work for the Spanish landowner on whose land they lived on. This presented a big problem because the Spanish had to get the mining work up and running again, but they could no longer count on Mayan and Aztec slaves to do it. The Spanish decided to enslave some African people because they figured, well theirs no law on exploiting Africans so let’s bring them in large quantities from West Africa and force them to do the labor that Mayan and Aztec people were forced to do. The Spanish were the dominating force in the late 1500s and they had complete control over many countries. The main goal of the Spanish was to generate as much profit as possible for themselves and careless about the people doing the work like Nike. From my point of view, Nike is also very similar