The Birth of a New People

Slavery in the New World predates back to 1492 when Columbus and his crew arrived in the West Indies and were found by the Indigenous People of the Caribbean, The Tainos. Contrary to belief, the Tainos were a socially and politically complex group of horticultural people organized under a central chief or Cacique. They had an Arawak-based language which had been passed down by their ancestors, the Caribe or Arawak Indians, who were a very aggressive group contrary to the Tainos' peaceful nature.

The Spanish had financed Columbus' trip, only on the condition he would repay this investment with profit by bringing back gold, spices and other valuables from Asia. Failing to contact the emperor of China and traders of India and China, a desperate Columbus decided to pay for his voyage in what he found in abundance - human lives. He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from Hispaniola (Dominican Republic/Haiti), crammed them onto his ships and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded naked through the streets and sold as slaves in 1495. On board, hundreds of Indians died from diseases that spread like wild fire in the crowded ships; the sailors would take the dead bodies and dump them into the Atlantic Ocean.

Columbus captured more Indian slaves than he could transport to Spain in his small ships; he put the rest of them to work in mines and plantations, which he, his family, and his followers had built across the West Indies. The Europeans began to take Taino women and children both as servants and to satisfy their own appetite. The Tainos who tried to defend themselves with flimsy and ineffective weapons had no chance against the Spaniards’ horses, swords, and lances. They hunted the Indians for sport and profit - beating, raping, torturing, killing, and then using the bodies of Tainos as food for their dogs. One of their games would include lining up Taino children and see how many they could chop in half in a single blow. In one occurrence they allowed their dogs to eat a cook who resisted, while still alive. Within a matter of a lifetime six to eight million Tainos were killed, including the Haitian Taino queen Anacaona.

All along in Africa, extending from the northeast all the way down to the Congo, the Portuguese began raiding coastal lines for slaves. Later on the English would become a driving force in the slave trade which eventually sparked the Industrial Revolution.

Initially most slaves were shipped directly to Europe. Slavery was not brought to Africa by the Europeans; they merely capitalized on an already integral part of African society. Among the slaves taken by the Portuguese, were criminals and prisoners-of-war sold to them by tribes at war with each other.

By the 1650’s Europeans began to expand the trade to the point where Portugal would run multiple "slave factories" along Africa's north and mid-western coast. They also had native Africans who became middle-men between the tribes and Europeans. These middle-men never allowed the Europeans to successfully penetrate deep into western Africa in fear of losing their job or eventually becoming slaves themselves. In exchange for slaves they would get firearms, gunpowder, clothing, and trinkets.
The Taino slaves had become nearly decimated by now, so the Europeans brought African slaves to replace them. About this time the mines were finally stripped of all their gold. In time African slaves would join the Taino in raids against the Spanish, but once again, due to the Spaniards’ superior weaponry, their attempts would be quickly shut down.

While similar events were happening along Central and South America, the Spaniards began to use religion as a way to control the population. With Christianity as the driving force the Spaniards began to "de-Africanize" the black slaves, and through intermarriages, raping, and mixing among the remaining Indians and Africans...The Latino Ethnicity was born.