During and after the European colonization of the Americas, European settlers practiced widespread enslavement of Indigenous peoples. In the 15th Century, the Spanish introduced chattel slavery through warfare and the cooption of existing systems. A number of other European powers followed suit, and from the 15th through the 19th centuries, between two and five million Indigenous people were enslaved, which had a devastating impact on many Indigenous societies, contributing to the overwhelming population decline of Indigenous peoples in the Americas.
After the decolonization of the Americas, the enslavement of Indigenous peoples continued into the 19th century in frontier regions of some countries, notably parts of Brazil, Northern Mexico, and the Southwestern United States. Some Indigenous groups adopted European-style chattel slavery during the colonial period, most notably the "Five Civilized Tribes" in the United States, however far more Indigenous groups were involved in the selling of Indigenous slaves to Europeans.
Colonial period
European enslavement of Indigenous Americans began with the Spanish colonization of the Caribbean. In Christopher Columbus's letter to Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain describing the native Taíno, he remarks that "They ought to make good and skilled servants" and "these people are very simple in war-like matters... I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased". The Catholic Monarchs initially rejected Columbus' enthusiasm for the slave trade. But although they issued a decree in 1500 that specifically forbade the enslavement of Indigenous people, they allowed three exceptions which were freely abused by colonial Spanish authorities: slaves taken in "just wars"; those purchased from other Indigenous people; or those from groups alleged to practice cannibalism (such as the Kalinago).
As other European colonial powers joined the Spanish, the practice of Indigenous enslavement was expanded. The new international market for products like tobacco, sugar, and raw materials incentivized the creation of extraction- and plantation-based economies in eastern North America, such as English Carolina, Spanish Florida, and (Lower) French Louisiana. At first, slave labor for these colonies was obtained largely by trading with neighboring tribes, such as the Yamasee. This trade in slaves was new: prior to the arrival of Europeans, tribes in eastern North America did not view slaves as commodities that could be bought and sold freely. Anthropologist David Graeber argued that debt and the threat of violence made this sort of transformation of human beings into commodities possible. Tribes like the Yamasee raided for slaves in order to pay back the debt they owed to European traders for finished goods. This in turn created a demand for guns and ammunition, which further indebted the slave-raiding tribes and created a vicious cycle. Most (but not all) tribes in eastern North America had not considered the status of slave heritable, and often integrated the children of slaves into their own communities. The export of slaves to European colonies (and the high death rates there) created an unprecedented population drain. Slave-raiding also led to constant wars between tribes, and eventually destroyed or threatened to destroy most peoples in the vicinity of the colonies. By the mid eighteenth century, population decline, frequent rebellions, and the availability of African slaves had caused a shift away from the large-scale enslavement of Indigenous peoples. Although it would be continued on the frontiers, in the economic cores of settler societies Indigenous slaves would be replaced with those of African origin.