ABSTRACT
The first indigenous people of America to be subjected to slavery were not destined to work for the conquistadores but to be sold in Spain to pay the Conquest’s expenses; 500 Indians from La Española were dispatched to Seville by Christopher Columbus in four ships that departed from Isabela on February 24, 1495. In 1496, Don Bartolomé, Columbus’s brother, sent 300 Indians to the port of Cádiz. In 1498, upon returning to La Española on his third voyage, the Discoverer wrote the following to the Catholic Monarchs: “From here, in the name of the Holy Trinity, may be sent all the slaves that can be sold” (Saco 1932, Vol. I, 102 ff.).
