This Day in Labor History: January 22, 1599. Spanish troops began their attack on Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. This incredibly violent incident and aftermath created a regime of labor under Spanish rule that would have devastating impacts on Native peoples! Let's talk about it!

From the moment Europeans came to the Americas, they had a pretty clear and consistent view of the labor regime they desired: people of color working for nothing or next to nothing.

Too often, our stories of American history downplay this because New England, which has played a huge part of national culture creation, was something of an exception, although not nearly to the extent that it gets portrayed.

But from New York to Argentina, the vast majority of colonial enterprises revolved in some way around this principle. It didn’t really matter much who the colonizing power was–French, Spanish, English, Dutch, Portuguese.

Wealth depended on wresting labor out of people with extreme violence and that was much easier to do when the people were not your own.