Iberian Slavery

In this article written by James H. Sweet, Sweet tries to go back to the root cause of how slavery actually came to be and thought of as it is today. Why were people of dark skinned complexion exploited to the extreme that they were? Why not the "lighter" colored people treated in the same manner?

As outlined in the article, a person's skin color outlined the inferiority in society. The darker the skin color the more inferior you where as a person, as a class as well as a race. White servants were not subject to hard labor because Iberians did not think of them so much as laborers but as good investments, because of the money they could receive from them and the possible religious outcomes. People of dark color were thought of as not having the education to sit the common world people. They were known as to act as "animals" eating herbs and sleeping with the woman, or sisters as the article refers, of their own kind. Also people of dark skinned were believed to be rightfully subjected to such treatment, because in the superior race's eyes, that's what they were put on this land to do. They were supposed to endure hard labor in order to carry out Ham's sentence.

The biblical reference to Ham also brings to light the Iberian thought of why slavery was justified. The Iberian's believed that hard labor was just for those of dark color as a punishment as not being Christianized, and as a way to get to that level they had to endure hardships to even try and obtain the worthiness, if at all possible, to be a Christian.

All in all, the article just simply outlines that the darker your skin color goes, the more hard labor you would have to endure. People of dark color were not worthy to have citizenship and enjoy the daily liberties as those of the lighter race and skin color. Iberians used biblical references

such as the story of Ham to back up their ideology also