In the United States it is very common to still hear about the poor way in which African Americans were treated in the early part of this nation's history. We hear stories of black slaves working 18 hours a day picking cotton and the trauma of slaves beaten for disobeying their masters. For many African American families, it seems, this was the way of life not so long ago. While it is very important to realize what these African Americans went through, I think it is often forgotten that indigenous people in Latin America were exploited in similar ways but through different labor systems. From Spain's early arrival in the Caribbean until the founding of the indigenous Spanish empire people were exploited through cheap, slave-like labor. One of the most incredible topics raised by documents presented in Spanish colonial America is the topic of labor systems imposed on indigenous people. Spain tried to excuse this exploitation by claiming to save these indigenous peoples by teaching them the ways of Christ, but many articles in Spanish Colonial America, Struggle and Survival, and The Limits of Racial Domination prove otherwise. Through letters, personal stories and other documents these books present accounts that tell the system of work used in this area. They tell of Spanish labor systems such as the encomiendos and later the rapartamientos and how these operations were managed. In discussing the labor system that existed during the period of Spanish rule, it is important to understand what labor systems were used, why the Spanish used them, how they justified using indigenous people in this way, how both indigenous people and black slaves. treated in these systems and the effects that the work systems have had on the indigenous population. As the first Spanish entradas arrived in the New World, they realized the vast resources that had been virtually untapped. They saw incredible wealth in sugarcane crops and wood dyes in Brazil, and in silver mines in Potosi and other northern areas, as well as many other raw resources. Early labor systems were very underdeveloped in colonial America, the natives had produced just enough to use what they needed and in some cases a little more for some trade with neighboring peoples, but there were no large-scale operations nowhere until the invasion of the Spanish. Spain saw all the resources of the Americas as great wealth for the Crown and the entrada leaders saw the opportunity for themselves. They also found that resource development "ultimately depended on the labor of non-Spaniards." When the Spanish arrived there were millions of indigenous people