Slavery In South America Research Paper

Slavery is the institution and practice of owning people. The method was introduced to settlers in North America by the Portuguese and Spanish who developed the encomienda system. As stated in the United States History: Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination, “The encomienda system, with the king of Spain giving grants of land and natives to individual Spaniards”(Newman and Schmalbach 8). Since then, the practice has been spread for a multitude of reasons. Although slavery has been present in many places of the world, each location's characteristics shape the type of slavery and conditions. North America and South America had different purposes for slavery, transportation and distribution of slaves, and impacts on society and economy

South America required a great amount of slaves due to the rigorous process of sugarcane production. According to Epic World History, “Sugar making, especially in its New World incarnation, has been aptly described as an industry that depends on farming and factory production. Through a series of complex steps requiring substantial skill and technical infrastructure”(“Sugarcane Plantations in the Americas”). Slaves worked in hell-like heat for hours and this caused them to faint and occasionally, die. As time passed, the institution of slavery spread like wildfire and more slaves were brought from Africa to South America. The Spanish Conquistadors sailed to North America and they introduced the slave system by enslaving Native Americans and they forced them to

Since South America’s sugarcane production required more work than North America’s cotton and tobacco production, they required more slaves. According to The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, “Of the 10 to 16 million Africans who survived the voyage to the New World, over one-third landed in Brazil and between 60 and 70 percent ended up in Brazil or the sugar colonies of the Caribbean. Only 6 percent arrived in what is now the United States”(“American Slavery in Comparative Perspective”). Slaves that were in South America made up 80 to 90 percent of the population, whereas in North America the slaves made up approximately 33 percent of the population. South America also had larger plantation due to the room needed to produce sugar from sugarcane as well as they had higher death rates and lower birth rates. This substantially meaning they depended on the importation of slaves like a child to a mother. The racial class system of the two locations were also different. In South America, they were more tolerant of racial mixing, whereas in North America they ran on a black and white racial system. When looking at the transportation and distribution between the two the only similarity was the transportation of the slaves from Africa to the