RE: Tangled Knots of History

The difficulty of the work was one of the reasons, I imagine. But the work was done by both slaves and non-slaves, which was the source of much turmoil in the island throughout the centuries.

What I find interesting in regards to slavery is that it was a normal thing for many cultures at the time. It wasn't as shocking to them as it is to us now. But when the colonial period began in the Americas, Europeans began to question the nature of slavery.

Shocked by the treatment of natives at the time, several thinkers, scholars, and men of religion convened to debate the nature of the "Indian". Whether or not they were humans and had a soul. Some argued that natives did not have a soul and could therefore be used as one uses a beast of burden. Others (including the Spanish Queen) believed that natives did have a soul and could therefore be Christianized and 'civilized'. Implicitly, the latter leads to the conclusion that if natives have a soul then they should be treated with the same respect afforded any other subject of the Spanish crown. There's a famous speech by a religious man (Bartolomé de las Casas) that calls for the respect and freedom of the slaves. They did not come to a conclusive agreement during that meeting, but it shows how human rights were already being debated in the upper echelons of society so early in the colonial period. It led to a papal decree Sublimis Deus in 1537, attesting to the humanity of slaves.

Thank you for reading.