{"id":2522,"date":"2025-02-16T08:42:50","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T08:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstblacks.org\/?p=2522"},"modified":"2025-02-16T08:59:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T08:59:55","slug":"general-role-in-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstblacks.org\/en\/summaries\/general-role-in-the-economy","title":{"rendered":"The fundamental role of blacks in La Espa\u00f1ola’s economy"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The fundamental role of blacks in La Espa\u00f1ola's economy<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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From early on Black Africans performed a fundamental role in the functioning and the survival of La Espa\u00f1ola as a viable colony during the sixteenth-century and then throughout the entire long colonial period\u00a0(see Manuscript No. 068)<\/a>.\u00a0La Espa\u00f1ola was the first Black slavery-based economy of the Americas and it remained so during the entire sixteenth-century. And afro-descendants\u00a0continued to be essential to the society of\u00a0La Espa\u00f1ola centuries later\u00a0once it\u00a0proclaimed itself as a new independent nation-state in 1844 under the name of\u00a0Dominican Republic.<\/p>

We know that a number of the Iberian\/European settlers\u00a0who\u00a0colonized\u00a0the indigenous Ta\u00ednos of La Espa\u00f1ola and later ushered in the arrival of Blacks predominantly as a mass of forced laborers, were perfectly aware of the\u00a0Blacks’\u00a0fundamental economic importance.\u00a0At times the colonists\u00a0expressed\u00a0their understanding of that fact by articulating the notion, repeated since\u00a0for centuries throughout the Americas, that without Blacks there would be no colonies.\u00a0(See Manuscript\u00a0No. 058)<\/a><\/p>

\"\"Black people did most of the labor that kept the colonial economy going in the 1500s.\u00a0This included: 1)\u00a0the mining of alluvial gold that the colonizers focused on during the earliest stage of the settlement\u00a0(see Manuscript No. 066)<\/a>; 2)\u00a0the work in farms that provided most of the agricultural food; 3)\u00a0the cattle breeding that produced abundant meat and hides; 4)\u00a0the labor in commercial agriculture plantations or farms, including the infamous cane-sugar plantations or\u00a0ingenios.\u00a0<\/em>In the sugar plantations enslaved Blacks\u00a0were subjected to\u00a0a new, often gruesome work pace and work conditions that cane-sugar\u00a0production brought with it into modernity in the Americas, after being tested by Western Europeans in the Eastern Atlantic colonial settings of the Madeira Islands and the Canary Islands.<\/p>

See\u00a0images of the remains of\u00a016th century sugar plantations of La Espa\u00f1ola by\u00a0clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>

Blacks were central in building the defensive walls and ditches\u00a0(see Manuscript No. 032)<\/a>\u00a0that protected Santo Domingo City, albeit\u00a0not always effectively,\u00a0from many\u00a0seaborne attacks by enemies of the Spanish empire, and they were most likely the bulk of the labor force in the construction of all sorts of buildings and structures\u00a0taking shape\u00a0either in Santo Domingo or in the towns and villages of the colony most remote from the capital city.\u00a0They were equally important\u00a0as home servants working in conditions of great intimacy with their owners\/masters and as urban laborers and artisans.\u00a0(See Manuscript No. 049)<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>

View\u00a0images of\u00a0the colonial system of defensive walls and erected elements of the City of Santo Domingo by\u00a0clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The fundamental role of blacks in La Espa\u00f1ola’s economy From early on Black Africans performed a fundamental role in the functioning and the survival of La Espa\u00f1ola as a viable colony during the sixteenth-century and then throughout the entire long colonial period\u00a0(see Manuscript No. 068).\u00a0La Espa\u00f1ola was the first Black slavery-based economy of the Americas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-summaries"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe fundamental role of blacks in La Espa\u00f1ola's economy - First Blacks in The Americas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/firstblacks.org\/en\/summaries\/general-role-in-the-economy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The fundamental role of blacks in La Espa\u00f1ola's economy - 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