Forced Labor versus “Slavery”: European Ideas and Indigenous Realities in Mesoamerica (CE 600–1521)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 1: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This presentation reconsiders what has conventionally been described as Mesoamerican “slavery.” Slavery is but one form of forced labor within various informal and institutionalized practices. Thus far, the majority of Mesoamerican forced labor has been studied using colonial sources written or edited by Spanish writers. While useful, these writers brought with them unfamiliar terms and concepts, which were then translated through cultures and back in time to precolumbian Mesoamerican societies. I present the impact of the terms “slave” and “slavery,” their import from European vernacular, and thus their influence on new concepts of forced labor. I contextualize my discussion with descriptions and examples of various coercive labor practices defined based on legal, social, and cultural circumstances. Forced labor can take the form of slavery, debt bondage, penal labor, and corvée (labor taxation). Much of the forced labor discussed is a consequence of downward social mobility. Those who fall down the social ladder are those most likely to be exploited by those at the top of the social ladder. This presentation examines how these coercive labor practices are used and presented in a series of written, pictorial, and material sources.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Misinformation and Misrepresentation Part 1: Reconsidering “Human Sacrifice,” Religion, Slavery, Modernity, and Other European-Derived Concepts

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38188.0