Slavery in Colonial Spanish America

In this episode, we examine slavery in Colonial Spanish America, tracing the development of forced labor from the early encomienda system imposed on Indigenous communities to the rise of race-based African chattel slavery across the Spanish American viceroyalties. The discussion explores how disease, conquest, and colonial exploitation reshaped labor systems, while plantations, mines, and urban economies increasingly depended on enslaved African workers. We also look at the later use of Asian indentured labor in places such as Cuba and Peru, revealing how coercive labor continued under new forms. Alongside these systems of oppression, the episode highlights resistance through rebellions, Maroon communities, legal challenges, and debates over human rights, before following the long and uneven road to abolition shaped by Enlightenment ideas and Latin American wars of independence.