The Other Slavery: Indian Enslavement in America

“Andres Reséndez vividly recounts the harrowing story of a previously little-known aspect of the histories of American slavery and of encounters between indigenes and invaders.” — Publishers Weekly

The Other Slavery: Indian Enslavement in America Is an eye-opening, landmark history of the enslavement of tens of thousands of Native Americans across America, from the time of the conquistadores to the early 20th century. This is a key missing chapter of American history. Resendez offers a startling contemporary insight: today’s global human trafficking has its roots less in the black slavery we have studied since grade school, and more in the other slavery we have failed to see. Unlike African slavery, Native American slavery was technically illegal on most of the American continent since the time of Columbus. Practiced as an open secret for centuries, there was no abolitionist movement to protect the indigenous people who were kidnapped and enslaved by the conquistadores throughout the 18th Century, or made to serve Mormon settlers and other Anglos as servants. Resendez builds the incisive, original case that mass slavery was more damaging than the disease epidemics that decimated indigenous populations across North America. He also sheds light on how and why the European enslaving incited Native Americans to enslave their own, through compelling anecdotes from priests, merchants, Indian captives, and Anglo colonists. What started as a European business passed into the hands of indigenous operators and spread across the entire American Southwest. Every now and then a new book comes along that…makes us see ourselves.

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