e also expressed by church and secular officials, but the words were often at odds with the reality. A change in attitude toward slavery came in the sixteenth century as a direct result of the Spanish exploitation of their new territories in the West Indies. The indigenous Indians were either so hostile that they were exterminated or were pressed into labor gangs to work in the minds and on the newly established sugar plantations. They died in large numbers from overwork or disease, and more and more laborers were needed to take up the slack (Gailey 118-119).
The system was unrealistic and highly destructive to the Indian population, which died off rapidly from exhaustion, starvation, disease, and other causes. The decimation of the Indian population had profound consequences for the settlers needed a new source of labor to meet the growing demands of sugarcane cultivation. The result was the importation of African slaves beginning in 1503, and by 1520, black African labor was used almost exclusively (Haggerty 4-5). In 150
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