Indigenous Caribbean enslavement disease deaths Reséndez

An Indigenous slavery historian challenges the usual account of Caribbean deaths

Disease devastated Indigenous communities after European colonization of the Americas. But historian Andrés Reséndez argues that enslavement, forced labor and displacement played an even larger role in some early Caribbean population collapses than commonly acknowledged. The interpretation highlights how epidemics and colonial exploitation interacted rather than operating as separate causes.

A short passage looks much longer

7 m → 30 m

At Rome’s Palazzo Spada, architect Francesco Borromini used columns that get smaller, a narrowing floor and a small statue to make a seven-meter passage appear thirty meters long.

The same physical feeling can become different emotions

In an experiment, people with the same physical arousal reported different emotions depending on how another person around them behaved. Some became angry while others were amused. The result suggests that bodily arousal alone does not decide which emotion we feel.

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Indigenous Caribbean enslavement disease deaths Reséndez

An Indigenous slavery historian challenges the usual account of Caribbean deaths

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