After Hernan Cortes defeated the Aztecs in 1519, Indians were forced to work in the gold mines, silver mines, and haciendas to supply wealth for Spain. Also, with the Spanish focusing on gold and silver mines and the growing of wheat and sugar to supply wealth for Spain, the French focused on fur trade with the Indians after Rene-Robert Calvelier claimed the Mississippi River for France in 1681. The significance of the fur trade from the French and the gold and silver mines along with the growing of wheat and sugar from the Spanish symbolize the Spanish and the French’s motive of increasing wealth for their home country to emigrate more people and to buy more land to expand their territory in the New World. With more land and more people emigrating to the New World, the Spanish could increase the amount of gold and silver mines along with wheat and sugar produced and the French could increase the amount of fur from the hunting of animals. Although the Indians’s supply of goods brought wealth for the Europeans, it left the Indians fewer food and fur to supply for themselves. As more of the goods that the Indians produced got turned into cash, the Spanish and the French both become rivals of each other to bring back more money to their mother …show more content…
In the article “History of the Indies” (1528), Las Casas mentioned,“ [Indians were] disposed of according to Spanish greed and cruelty, … , not as men in captivity but as beasts tied to a rope to prevent free moment.” Las Casas’s action of importing slaves from Africa to replace the Native American population demonstrated his ability to prevent the Native American population from mistreatment under the Spanish rule and allow Indians to be treated fairly under the European society. Indians were human beings that had the same rights as the Spanish to decide whether to forfeit their land and work for the Spanish or whether they decided to keep their land and not work for the Spanish at all. Without Las Casa’s efforts to free the Native Americans under the Spanish rule, the Native American population would be decreasing every day until there would no more Native Americans in the New World. With Las Casa’s efforts to free the Native American population from Spanish rule, the Spanish increased its labor through the importation of slaves. As more and more slaves got imported in the New World for Spain, other European societies such as the Dutch and the English also imported African slaves to increase their labor force. To the Europeans, slaves were a group of people who were resisted to European diseases and