Before the arrival of Europeans and the subsequent introduction of African slavery into North America, many Native American tribes across the continent engaged in various forms of Native American slavery. However, it is crucial to understand that these pre-contact practices were generally distinct from the chattel slavery that would later be established by European colonists. While some tribes utilized captive labor, none exploited it on the massive, economically driven scale that characterized European slavery.
Pre-Contact Practices: Captivity and Integration
The enslavement practices of Native American tribes primarily involved war captives. These individuals were often incorporated into the tribe, albeit in a subservient role. Their labor was typically small-scale, contributing to domestic tasks, agriculture, and other everyday activities. However, the fate of captives could vary significantly depending on the tribe and the circumstances of their capture.
Beyond labor, some tribes employed captives in ritualistic practices. These could range from ceremonial sacrifices, sometimes involving torture as part of religious rites, to instances of ritual cannibalism. It’s important to recognize that these practices were deeply embedded in the spiritual beliefs of certain tribes and were not simply arbitrary acts of cruelty.
A key distinction between pre-contact Native American practices and European chattel slavery was the concept of racial inferiority. There is little evidence to suggest that Native American slaveholders viewed their captives as inherently inferior based on their ethnicity. Instead, captives were often viewed as casualties of war, individuals who had lost their freedom due to conflict.
Furthermore, the concept of buying and selling captives was largely absent in the pre-colonial era. While enslaved individuals might be exchanged between tribes as gestures of peace or to redeem captured members, these transactions were not primarily driven by economic profit.
Importantly, the term "slave" may not accurately reflect the status of captive people within Native American societies. Many tribes, particularly the Iroquoian peoples, practiced adoption of captives. This process, however, was not always immediate. Among the Iroquois tribes, for example, adoptions were often delayed for spiritual reasons, sometimes spanning several seasons until the appropriate time. During this interim period, the captives might perform forced labor as part of their "ritual rebirth," adding to the spiritual power of the clan group. In this context, the captive’s role was far more complex than that of a slave in the European sense.
In many cases, tribes adopted captives to replace warriors who had been killed in battle. These adoptees were expected to fill the economic, military, and familial roles of the deceased, effectively stepping into their shoes and maintaining the spirit power of the tribe. Conversely, warrior captives might be subjected to ritual mutilation or torture, potentially leading to death, as part of a spiritual grief ritual for relatives slain in battle.
Some tribes implemented measures to prevent captives from escaping. For instance, they might cut off one foot of a captive. Others allowed enslaved male captives to marry the widows of slain husbands, integrating them into the tribe through familial bonds.
The Creek, who practiced this custom and operated under a matrilineal system, treated children born of slaves and Creek women as full members of their mother’s clan and the tribe. Because property and hereditary leadership passed through the maternal line, these children did not inherit slave status. Similarly, cultural practices among the Iroquoian peoples, which were also rooted in a matrilineal system where men and women held equal value, dictated that a child’s status was determined by the woman’s clan. Generally, tribes favored taking women and children as captives for adoption, as they tended to adapt more easily to new ways.
Several tribes also held captives as hostages for payment. Additionally, some tribes practiced debt slavery or imposed slavery on tribal members who had committed crimes. In these cases, full tribal status would be restored once the enslaved individual had worked off their obligations to the tribal society.
Other tribes known to have engaged in slave-owning practices in North America included the Comanche of Texas, the Creek of Georgia, the fishing societies such as the Yurok of Northern California, the Pawnee, and the Klamath.
The Impact of European Contact
The arrival of Europeans drastically altered the landscape of Native American slavery. As Europeans established colonies, they created a new and lucrative market for captive labor. Native American tribes, in their initial interactions with Europeans, attempted to exploit their captives from enemy tribes as a "method of playing one tribe against another" in a failed attempt at divide and conquer.
The Haida and Tlingit, who inhabited the southeastern coast of Alaska, were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave traders, raiding as far south as California. In their societies, slavery was hereditary, with slaves being primarily prisoners of war. Among some Pacific Northwest tribes, slaves constituted as much as one-fourth of the population.
Transformation of Practices: A Demand for Labor
For decades, the colonies faced a chronic shortage of workers, fueling the demand for captives. This was particularly true in the southern colonies, which were initially developed for resource extraction rather than widespread settlement. Colonists purchased or captured Native Americans to use as forced labor in cultivating tobacco and, by the eighteenth century, rice and indigo.
To acquire trade goods, Native Americans began selling war captives to whites instead of integrating them into their own societies. The traded goods varied among tribes and included items such as axes, bronze kettles, Caribbean rum, European jewelry, needles, scissors, and, most prized of all, rifles.
The English, mirroring the practices of the Spanish and Portuguese, viewed the enslavement of Africans and Native Americans as a morally, legally, and socially acceptable institution. They rationalized enslavement through the concept of "just war," arguing that taking captives and imposing slavery was a more humane alternative to a death sentence.
However, the enslavement of Native Americans proved to be problematic for the colonists. Native American slaves frequently escaped, leveraging their superior knowledge of the land. Consequently, captured Native Americans were often sent to the West Indies or other locations far from their homes to prevent their return.
The first recorded instance of an African slave in the colonies dates back to Jamestown, predating the widespread adoption of indentured servitude in the 1630s. By 1636, however, only Caucasians could lawfully enter into contracts as indentured servants. The oldest record of a permanent Native American slave dates to 1636 and concerns a native man from Massachusetts.
By 1661, slavery had become legal in all 13 colonies. Virginia would later declare "Indians, Mulattos, and Negros to be real estate," and in 1682, New York forbade African or Native American slaves from leaving their master’s home or plantation without permission.
Europeans also held differing views on the enslavement of Native Americans compared to that of Africans. While both groups were considered "savages," Africans were often perceived as "brutish people," whereas Native Americans were romanticized as "noble" individuals capable of being elevated into Christian civilization.
The Complexities of Native American Enslavement
Despite its prevalence, much remains unknown about the thousands of Native Americans who were forced into labor. Two prevailing myths have complicated the historical understanding of Native American slavery: the notion that Native Americans were undesirable as servants and the belief that Native Americans were exterminated or pushed out after King Philip’s War.
The precise legal status of some Native Americans is difficult to ascertain, as involuntary servitude and slavery were poorly defined in 17th-century British America. Some masters asserted ownership over the children of Native American servants, attempting to turn them into slaves. The historical uniqueness of slavery in America lies in the rigid line drawn by European settlers between "insiders" (people like themselves who could never be enslaved) and "nonwhite outsiders" (mostly Africans and Native Americans who could be enslaved).
A unique aspect of the relationship between natives and colonists was the gradual assertion of sovereignty over the native inhabitants during the seventeenth century. Ironically, this transformed them into subjects with collective rights and privileges that Africans could not enjoy.
The West Indies, which developed as plantation societies prior to the Chesapeake Bay region, had a significant demand for labor. In the Spanish colonies, the church assigned Spanish surnames to Native Americans and recorded them as servants rather than slaves. Many members of Native American tribes in the West were forcibly taken to live out their lives as slaves. In the East, Native Americans were recorded as slaves.
Slavery in Indian Territory across the United States served various purposes, from plantation work in the East to guiding expeditions across the wilderness, laboring in the deserts of the West, and serving as soldiers in wars. Native American slaves suffered from exposure to new European diseases, inhumane treatment, and death. The history of Native American slavery is a complex and often overlooked aspect of North American history, one that reveals the diverse and evolving nature of forced labor on the continent.