He explains why smallpox was unlikely to cross the Atlantic: Smallpox was endemic in the Old World, and the majority of Europeans had been exposed to it as children and those who survived had lifelong immunity. Because “it had no legal basis, it was never formally abolished like African slavery,” the “other slavery” continued well into the 20th century.Īccording to Reséndez, the Spanish were well aware of disease at that time they knew exactly what smallpox was and what it looked like, but they make no mention of it. The “other slavery” shaped the shared history of Mexico and later the United States, and was so deeply entrenched that it was ignored. While the archaeological record suggests that slavery between tribes existed before the coming of Europeans, their arrival transformed it and made it so widespread as to leave no part of North America untouched. But, he argues, there was another kind of slavery in the New World - “the other slavery” - that predated and outlasted the African slave trade that was in many ways more fundamental.
When we think of slavery in the New World we immediately think of the capture and sale of African slaves who were then transported to North America.
Andrés Reséndez boldly argues that slavery, not necessarily disease and misfortune, was the one part of the colonial matrix that decimated the indigenous population of North America and that the institution of this “other slavery” was the model for all others. It is not often that a single work of history can change the course of an entire field and upset the received notions and received knowledge of the generations but that is exactly what “The Other Slavery” does.
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