Development Of The Labor Movement History Essay Paper

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Development of the Labor Movement
Introduction
The expansion of European colonial territories across various continents was aimed at acquiring resources and land which was useful in the production of exports that were then sold in the growing trans-Atlantic market (LDHI). For a production to be profitable, Europeans required significant labor resources, and Europeans who settled in America acquired these services from convicts and servants, as well as enslaved and free indigenous people who resided in America. This indicates that most of the laborers used during the colonial periods in America were a mix of Africans, American Indians, and Europeans. The laborers were useful in the mining of precious metals, cultivating cash crops, working in multiple artisan trades, working in households, and tending to livestock (PBS). Africans and their African American offsprings, however, were mostly used in large plantations. In general, these groups of workers were considered indentured servants, and were eligible for freedom dues after a certain duration of service, after which they were offered land and supplies. Racial distinction was uncommon; instead, colonialists considered the servants as non-Christians, meaning that once converted, the servants could be freed from slavery (PBS). However, the increasing number of freed Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans by the late 1600s posed a threat to the colonialists, especially on available lands as the freed indentured servants demanded fewer restrictions on land (PBS). Such tensions eventually led to a transition from indentured slavery to racial slavery. This process forms part of the transition in the labor movement in America, which has been experienced since the late 1400s. As such, this paper seeks to conduct further analysis of the labor movement in America by discussing this transition from late 1400s to the 1700s.
The Spanish and the Indigenous Slaves
The Spanish were the first colonialists to use enslaved indigenous people as laborers in America. Led by Christopher Columbus, a Spanish merchant, thousands of Spanish colonialists established colonies on the island of Hispaniola in America in 1492 (LDHI). Despite having a greater interest in finding gold, Columbus considered the indigenous people of South America as having great potential as laborers. The desire to commodify captives led Columbus to load five hundred slaves into his ship and transport them to Spain to sell on the Spanish labor market. Two decades after the arrival of the Europeans in South America, the demand for slave labor grew exponentially among the Spanish and other nations. The Spanish, however, maintained their dominance since they required more slaves to work in the pearl fisheries or Margarita ad Cubagua, as well as the plantation and mines of the Antilles (LDHI). However, the trend in enslavement and commodifying captives became a major concern for the Spanish Crown mainly because of the abuse and inhumane conditions that the captives were subjected to (Arnove and Zinn 42). The Spanish Crown considered South American natives as a strategic resource in the fight for the possession of colonial territory. As such, the Crown demanded t...