The system of bringing African slaves across the Atlantic to work in European colonies in Central America began in 1509. There was a sense that indigenous American slaves were unsuitable for such work: the new governor of the Spanish colony in Santo Domingo (the modern-day Dominican Republic), Columbus's son Diego Colon, judged them to be insufficiently hard-working. The bishop of Chiapas (in modern-day Mexico), Bartholeme de las Casas, was also uncomfortable with the idea of using the indigenous population as a source of slavery, although for different reasons: he was the first person to hold the official Spanish governmental title, 'Protector of the Indians'. By contrast, however, he saw enslavement of Africans as less problematic, so …

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Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Slave Trade, beginning of". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 February 2010 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1019, accessed 23 November 2024.]