StellarFrom 1492 to 1607, slavery in the Americas evolved significantly, primarily driven by the need for labor in the burgeoning colonial economies. The Spanish and Portuguese empires (Portugal conquered Brazil), followed later by other European powers, relied heavily on enslaved Africans to support their colonial enterprises, particularly as the demand for labor grew in the wake of the decline in Native American populations.
Initially, the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers attempted to use Native American labor for their extensive agricultural and mining operations, under a system endorsed by the Spanish crown known as repartimiento, which gave the Spanish colonizers the right to Native labor a certain number of days a year. However, the indigenous populations faced catastrophic declines due to diseases brought by Europeans, harsh working conditions, and warfare. The dramatic reduction in native labor led to the introduction of African slaves, who were forcibly transported across the Atlantic to meet the labor demands of the colonies. This began the trans-Atlantic Slave trade, a booming market that treated African captives as property and cargo rather than humans. Millions would be transported across the Middle Passage aboard crowded ships, and some 20% would die in that process.