In 1619 slavery started in the whole of America, the majority of the slaves came from Africa, but then the rest were Native Americans. Even though Native Americans were enslaved they also owned slaves. Slavery is a condition in which people are being owned by others. They are controlled by where they live and what work they have to accomplish. Slavery has been used throughout our history, the Romans, Aztecs, Incas and the ancient Greeks all owned slaves. Sometimes the slaves even built the foundation of many empires (IPFS). Although many studies show that Native Americans were enslaved by many countries, on the other hand, Native Americans also owned slaves.
When European colonists arrived in America they changed slavery by increasing the demand for captives of raids. Colonists from southern colonies in America did not have enough workers so they purchased or captured Native Americans and forced them into labour. When the Spanish and Portuguese started to enslave Africans and Native Americans, the English saw enslavement as a legal, moral, and as socially acceptable. By 1661 enslaving Native Americans was legal in all 13 colonies in America. There is no large amount of information about the thousands of Native Americans who were forced into labour. The reason is that people forgot about the Native American slavery, but later many historians began to see these situations around the 20th Century (Nakia Parker). In 1636 the oldest evidence of a permanent Native American slave was in Massachusetts. Even though the slavery of the Native Americans was harsh in the Spanish colonies, churches gave the Native Americans, Spanish surnames and considered them as servants and not slaves. Even though slavery was very harsh, some slaves managed to escape, because they had a developed understanding of the area whereas the African slaves did not (Michael Guasco). So then usually when a Native American was captured and sold into slavery they would be sent far away from their homeland or to the West Indies (IPFS). The enslavement of Native Americans became so popular that almost two-thirds of the slaves in Canada were Indigenous. Between 1492 and 1880, 12.5 million African slaves and between 1 and 5 million Native Americans were enslaved (Bonita Lawrence). The largest tribe in the Native Americans tribes was the Appalachian Indians. This tribe was the became the largest enslaved tribe when an English colony of Carolina came and enslaved them in 1670 (Max Carocci). Many Native Americans including non-combats surrendered during the King Philip’s war so that they could avoid being enslaved but unsuccessfully got enslaved (Gillian Killey-Brown).
During these times Indigenous Americans were treated in a very inhuman way, but unlike African American slaves which were legal for a long period of time, enslaving Native Americans was not legal as a Historian called Resendez says (Nakia Parker). This helped the Native Americans of being enslaved in an even greater amount then if they could be owned legally. African slaves were enslaved more often because they did not know the land so that lead to them being more dependent on their owner so that lead to a lower amount of Indigenous Americans. On the other hand that was a reason why the Indigenous Americans would be sent far away from the lands they know, changing their tribe and cultural traditions. There was hope in many churches in California where they would not accept slavery (Arica L. Coleman). Native Americans were enslaved as well as they owned slaves.
Some Native American during the European colonization held war captives as slaves, the most common slaves were African. Although these Native American tribes owned slaves did not use slave labour in a large amount. Some very religious tribes used these slaves in ritual sacrifice. Even though Native Americans owned slaves they did not consider the slaves to racially inferior. Native Americans did not buy slaves to show their tribal strength, they adopted slaves to replace warriors that were killed during raids (IPFS). In the Aztec tribe the captive was owned by its captor, so the Aztecs would rarely sell slaves to other countries. In the Sahagun tribe, slaves that had some special or unusual talent would be instead of sacrificed they would be sold to the noble and rich and were used as domestic slaves (Rhaina Cohen). The slaves that were captured from one tribe would always stay in the same tribe until they were released or for other reasons (William Christie Macleod). In many cases, the slaves racial component would not important to their captivity and they would be taken in to join the tribe, this shows that the Native American would adopt the slaves and consider them as part of the tribe and not as servants, slaves, etc (Sam Morningstar). Even though Indigenous Americans owned slaves they did not treat them in inhuman ways compared to other countries.
When Native Americans started enslaving Africans they started to a position in the social class. This helped them gain respect between other tribes and countries because they were not considered as slaves anymore because they owned slaves as well, they were considered as servants and personal helpers (Bonita Lawrence). The Native Americans wanted to gain a higher position so they started to enslave people, another reason why they owned slaves was, that they wanted to fit into the European society. There were 5 tribes which were called the 5 civilized tribes which followed European practices to be part of the white society (IPFS). The Native Americans enslaved mostly Africans so that their tribes would not be damaged by the Europeans and Americans.
I think that the enslavement of Native Americans has damaged the culture, traditions, and their style of living crucially, because they how to work very hard for the owner, there were treated in inhuman ways, and they had to be moved away from there family and countries to a faraway land. On the other hand, the fact that the Indigenous American enslaved mostly Africans, caused them to gain more respect leading to less Native Americans being enslaved. This then meant that the cultural, ethical factors from the Native Americans would not be damaged. If the Europeans would not have enslaved the Native Americans in the first point then the Native Americans would not have to enslave the Africans. Overall the Native Americans have been changed in many ways due to the enslavement of their tribes and Native Americans owning slaves.