1494–1508 · selected period
Colonization and forced labor on Hispaniola
Hispaniola; Taíno peoples
Spanish colonization of Hispaniola imposed captivity, compulsory tribute and forced labor on Indigenous communities. Zinn dates a shipment of captives to Spain to 1495. Las Casas describes long mining assignments, inadequate food and separation from home under Nicolás de Ovando, with gold divided between the Crown and private recipients.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
1494–1508 is a selected teaching window, not the full duration of colonization or Ovando’s administration. The 1495 shipment is dated here from Zinn; no shipment total is asserted. Las Casas’s retrospective account supports the labor description, but its mortality estimates are not treated as a census. Encomienda concerned claims to Indigenous tribute and labor; it should not be defined simply as a landed estate.
Sources
- Library of Congress: Beyond 1619, slavery in Hispaniola ↗
- Library of Congress: colonial Santo Domingo ↗
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 1, pp. 4–7; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- Las Casas, History of the Indies, Collard translation (1971), pp. 82, 112–115; publisher excerpt on Hispaniola labor ↗