by
Fred Glass
9
2. On a Mission: How Work Destroyed Native California
0
terms
1
notes
18
During the thousands of years before the Spanish came, the work of the Indians simply provided for living. From the Spanish point of view, it was the other way around: the Indians lived to work for them. The precipitous loss of half the Native Californians within a single lifetime followed their transformation from free subsistence hunter-gatherers into a class of coerced laborers, forced to create a surplus for their Spanish masters.
During the thousands of years before the Spanish came, the work of the Indians simply provided for living. From the Spanish point of view, it was the other way around: the Indians lived to work for them. The precipitous loss of half the Native Californians within a single lifetime followed their transformation from free subsistence hunter-gatherers into a class of coerced laborers, forced to create a surplus for their Spanish masters.