Under the encomienda system, settlers were granted the right to the labor of indigenous people in order to mine for precious metals. It was not technically slavery—workers were not owned by the settlers—but in practice it was little different. Overworked, attacked by diseases against which they had no immunity, executed as punishment for revolt, and often committing suicide to escape their brutal conditions, the indigenous population declined precipitously within the first few decades of Spanish colonization. By 1514, of a population estimated to have been between 500,000 and 750,000 in 1492, only 29,000 were left.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 40