Given its distance from the central governing body in Mexico City as well as the Eastern influence of a young United States, New Mexico enjoyed a certain level of autonomy. The Viceroyalty of New SpainĬonsidering the isolation and cultural makeup of the Southwest in the 18 th century, it is little surprise that such a unique economy came to be.
More than that, quite often did the slave become an integrated member of the family. The Southwest gave birth to a different kind of slave, the Genízaro – a captive Indian without a tribe who, if not in the minds of their captors then at least in the vernacular – was considered not a slave but a servant.
Such a foundation was hardly unique in the New World, although the system’s origins, motivations, and outcome were wholly Southwestern. Beginning late in the 17 th century and continuing all throughout Mexican rule and into American conquest, settlers within these Spanish borderlands built their homes, haciendas, and communities on a slavery-based political economy.
The American Southwest during the late Spanish colonial period was home to one of the most precarious family systems in the world.
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