An account of slavery in the New World which was never known by that name: the enslavement of Native Americans by the Spanish, British, Americans--and by Indian tribes themselves.
The conventional narrative to explain the catastrophic depopulation of the Americas post-1492 has been: the rapid spread of European diseases. In The Other Slavery, historian Andrés Reséndez advances a wholly different theory: that it was enslavement by the new masters of the continent that caused the deaths of millions of Native Americans. Not only the Spanish were at fault: Reséndez also tells the story of Captain John Sutter, a legendary hero of California history, who was also a ruthless slave master in the mid 1800s. But since Native Americans--unlike African Americans--were never called "slaves", since California was a free territory, the story of this has been conveniently omitted from history books and research agendas. Until now. One reviewer says that "if the book makes anything clear, it's that the single organizing force was simple: greed, and an absence of empathy that meant a slow genocide for the victims." (Genevieve Valentine, NPR)
The Other Slavery was the 2017 winner of the prestigious Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy--among many other awards. Reséndez is also the author of another excellent book we have read in the EPL History Book Discussion group, A Land So Strange, about the failed expedition by Spanish conquistadors to conquer Florida in the 1520s and 30s--and the fate of the few survivors as they trekked across an entire unexplored continent.
Breaking news: Author Andrés Reséndez will be joining this discussion via Zoom from Davis, California.
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