Power and Labor in the Encomienda and the Factory.

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Power and Labor in the Encomienda and the Factory.
An examination of historical events demonstrates the injustices that have been committed against particular groups. The course materials indicated that the privileges enjoyed by a particular group were often derived from the labor of another. For instance, the enormous achievements of Caesar Augustus that are much celebrated today were because the Roman Empire relied on slave labor. Without the use of slave labor, Caesar Augustus would never have realized the achievements that he boasted about at the end of his life. Similarly, the Encomienda took advantage of labor to oppress indigenous people, while rewarding the colonial masters. Additionally, the factories of the industrial era created wealth for the owners via exerting control over the work and livelihood of a subordinate group. Despite the popularity of the Encomienda and the factory systems, a line of critics emerged. Some of the notable people that were outspoken about the oppression of the people. These individuals were opposed to the use of labor to enrich a few people. They voiced their concerns through writing in an attempt to influence society to realize the need to abandon the oppression of laborers. Both A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de las Casas and The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are two documents that present compelling arguments against the dehumanizing of the workers.
Las Casas gives an account of the mistreatments committed against the indigenous people of the Americas during the colonial period. He does this by demonstrating how the arrival of Spaniards into the “new world” has marked the start of an unprecedented collision of cultures. Las Casas considers how the colonialists subdued the natives through torture and brutal murder. After such fights, the colonial masters would take the surviving natives, usually the young boys, women, and children, and share between the victors. The men would then be sent “down the mines, where working conditions were appalling, to dig for gold…” (Las Casas 24). Further, women would be required to work in the estates of the masters, where they would till the soil and raise the crops. The women are forced to undertake jobs that are ordinarily supposed to be done by the strongest men. While the men and women do the jobs, they are ill-fed. The laborers are provided with unnutritional foods like wild grasses to each. Women watch their children die since they cannot breastfeed them properly. As the men die in the mines due to overwork, the same happens to the women in the estate fields.
Since Las Casas has witnessed the atrocities committed against the indigenous people, he demonstrates that the Encomienda system is defective. He demonstrates how the system has allowed the vast accumulation of wealth by the conquistadors and ultimately the Spanish crown. The two have benefited from the discovery of precious minerals like gold and silver. They have taken advantage of the availability of these materials in the “New World” and labor from the indigenous people. Las Casas exposes the view of the Spanish towards the indigenous people. In the view of the colonialists, the native people were primitive and a lesser breed. The masters held what Aristotle taught that some individuals were fewer humans and were meant to be slaves while others were superior and meant to be masters. Hence, the Spanish accumulated gold and silver at the expense of the natives. Las Casas indicates how in the Mainland the Spanish discovered a land with precious minerals. He states that “Nowhere on the face of the earth had such an enormous wealth of gold been discovered…” (Las Casas 31). The governor, in an attempt to acquire more wealth, resulted in torturing the native population to reveal where they keep their gold. The governor went on to rob the natives of all their possessions. The move resulted in deaths of more than 40,000 natives, who were killed using brutal means. Stripping the indigenous people what they owned indicates the systematic attempt of the colonialists to make the natives slaves. Without their possessions, the natives have no option, rather than depending on the new masters for their survival. In addition to depriving the people of their valuable minerals, the Spanish go ahead and force the native people to work in the mines through forced labor.
Since Las Casas sees the innocence of the indigenous people, he believes that they do not deserve such treatment. He does not understand how the natives, as harmless as they are, should be subjected to such humiliation, torture, and murder. He holds that the preaching of t...