g ranks of the Indio labor force.
Sub-Saharan African slaves had various advantages over the Indio (and occasional white) slaves already in the New World, primary among them being a resistance to the tropical heat and diseases that were decimating the Indio population. A more subtle advantage was the matter of religion. According to Papal and royal Spanish decree, only peoples conquered in a "just war" could be enslaved - women and children were generally excluded from that definition of slavery; the terms of enslavement were considered single-generational; conversion to the "true faith" was often enough to secure release from slavery after a period of bondage. To that end, in fact, Queen Isabella had already taken the cause of the Indios as her own, appointing various religious leaders to look protectively after the interests of her "children." Although, upon his wife's death in 1504, King Ferdinand simply let his distant subjects ignore the late Queen's expressed wishes, those idealistic concerns remained on the books to be brought up again an
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