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The Other Slavery

Captain John Sutter landed in California in 1839 and promptly started collecting

Aboriginal captives from various cultures to labor the property he had acquired. He eventually

held numerous hundreds of "Indian captives," whom he handled notoriously poorly, by even

servitude expectations (Shefveland, 2016). The reasons that enabled Serra to retain these

prisoners in a nominally free country are part of the complicated sociopolitical causes that

Andrés Reséndez delves into in The Other Slaves. However, if the novel demonstrates

something, the organizational factor was straightforward: avarice and a lack of humanity, which

resulted in systematic extermination for the captives. Despite its incomprehensible cruelty, the

chronology of black collar slavery in the South concludes with the freedom of almost 3.5 million

Black Americans by 1865. On the contrary, as Andrés Reséndez writes in his innovative new

book on the topic, the history of Indian captivity in the Americas does not come to a complete

end. It concludes somewhat indefinite in the late 19th century, not only with a groan but also

with a sniffle.

The Other Slavery is a crucial study in a tumultuous historical setting; Reséndez

maintains a purposeful scientific distance from the material, presenting data and crafting
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meticulous — even conservative — arguments. But the evidence speaks for itself, and the

tragedies continue to mount up in silence. Enslavement of North America and the Caribbean

communities shattered entire nations and permanently obliterated cultural and political

ecosystems. Smallpox was the disease that wiped out Native American communities after they

were exposed to Europeans; an illness to which they had no immunity devastated their numbers.

Reséndez thinks that the source of the outbreak was the Europeans themselves.” American

schoolchildren are taught that smallpox was the epidemic that gutted Native American

populations after exposure to Europeans” Reséndez believes that Europeans started the

pandemic.

The concealment involved in aboriginal people's captivity is unusual. Slavery was

outlawed by-laws for a few years, and servants and governments spent most of their time and

resources devising sophisticated defenses. Rulers instituted punishing contracts to staff local gold

or silver mining, while "Expeditions," who sometimes indicated an interest in trading in

intellectual resources, professed holy fights to bring native prisoners to Christianity. Laws and

social collusion backed the institutions, making emancipation difficult. After all, how can you

free someone that isn't a victim? (This, unfortunately, is not a victimization study. For example,

Resendez highlights Indians who sued for their freedom, the 1680 Pueblo revolution, and even

Geronimo as examples of societal resistance.

It's sad but unavoidable that some of the historical resonance of the facts at issue has been

lost amid the white defensiveness that has persisted for so long. Rather than "self-contained

billiard balls colliding on the frontier," as Reséndez describes it, this is a case study in the horrors

of colonialism's trickle-down effects. He writes as though he is fully aware that any contact with
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Indian slavers will erase some of the complexities of his research. It was a difficult challenge, but

you performed an excellent job.

Aside from the broad brushstrokes of this horrible history, many of us are also aware of

America's subsequent history with the people whose lands were conquered and how it treated

them. No matter how well-educated or knowledgeable you believe you are, The Other Slavery's

understated, just-the-facts assessment of the antebellum South will astound you. It's a case study

in power abuse, revealing a murky history and drawing a disturbing parallel to the present. While

The Other Slavery is not a call to action, its scholarship demands emotional and intellectual

investment from its readers, echoing the sense of loss of nineteenth-century Navajo leader

Armijo, who petitioned the American government for the return of his people's lost children: "Is

American equality that we must give up all of it and end up receiving hardly anything?"

Reséndez understands how difficult it is to communicate this tale straightforwardly.

Slavery on the Indian subcontinent was too diverse, ubiquitous, and geographically distributed to

be adequately depicted in a single book (Kumar, 2021. Pp). Instead, he tells a sequence of

anecdotes that demonstrate the scope and endurance of Native American persecution. Slavery

was practiced by indigenous American civilizations long before Europeans arrived, as Reséndez

reminds out. With the arrival of European colonists, Indian captivity was "commodified,

extended in unanticipated ways, and began to resemble current forms of human trafficking."

When it comes to imperialism, industrialization, and settlements, Reséndez does not

spare the reader the agony of witnessing an entire society founded on the institution of enslaved

Native Americans. He also describes certain horrific acts of depravity and brutality committed in

the name of the monarchy and Christ in the New World. This is a creepy read. He also does not

ignore the myriad variations on the essential topic of several tribes fighting one other. He shows
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how the Comanche and Utes, who built their empires on horseback, extended their area and

conquered adjacent tribes like the Paiute, Pueblo, Mexicans, and Apaches.

Rather than saying that a type of slavery existed that was older, more prevalent, and more

horrifying than African slavery (or that it lasted longer), Resendez contends an undeniable and

evident link between the two. This is significant because, according to his account, Southern

states enacted the infamous Black Codes in 1865-1866 to limit the freedom of freed slaves. "The

tactics he outlines are straight out of the playbook that was used to keep Native Americans in

captivity in the American West and Mexico long after both countries abolished slavery."

For the reader's sake, this well-researched and engaging book should make readers feel

horrible about the settlement of the New World. In place of "old slavery," founded on the legal

ownership of certain ethnic groups, "new slavery" has existed for some time, focused on

financial weakness rather than race: control mechanisms designed to deprive employees of their

independence to steal their output.

When most people think of slavery in America, they envision Africans being kidnapped

from their homes and families, crammed into tight quarters aboard ships, and subjected to brutal

treatment upon arrival. These chapters are littered throughout history, and they serve as a

sobering reminder of the atrocities that humankind is capable of in their pursuit of financial

riches and power. As the book's author demonstrates, the slave trade in America did not simply

affect Africans; "the other enslavement" also affected indigenous people. This "other" slave trade

did not replace African slavery; instead, as the author points out, it was "always present."

Slavery existed among indigenous peoples in North America long before Europeans

arrived, but their presence represented a fundamental shift in its nature. The tale begins in the
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Caribbean, then moves to Central America, and finally to North America. "The other slavery"

developed from a monolithic institution to a "collection of kaleidoscopic behaviors suited to

diverse markets and localities" as it spread. "What began as a European enterprise slipped into

the hands of indigenous operators and grew like wildfire throughout huge areas of the American

Southwest," according to the dust cover blurb. As a result of this transition, we now have a

greater understanding of Mexico and the United States' shared past.

This is a novel that will make you both laugh and cry. This is an extremely tough novel to

read at times, yet despite its "heavy reliance on historical language," it is a simple book to read

on the page. If you don't expect it to be a history lesson for the people, you won't be

disappointed.
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Work cited

Andrés Reséndez. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 2017.

Kumar, Binoy. Perspectives on Indian Society. KK Publications, 2021.

Shefveland, Kristalyn Marie. Anglo-Native Virginia: Trade, Conversion, and Indian Slavery in

the Old Dominion, 1646-1722. Vol. 6. University of Georgia Press, 2016.