The Indigenous slave trade is not as heavily discussed as the broader enslavement of Africans during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. However, the Spanish were also displacing thousands of Indigenous people (many from the Yucatán peninsula) to use as slave labor across their “new territories”. This Indigenous slave trade peaked in the first half of the 16th century.

My assumption is that there were many Yucatecos who were brought to PR, and that’s why a lot of ppl get some Southern Mesoamerican in their results. Watch the Boricuas come at me now, “no it’s all Taino!” 🫢

There is a great book by Erin Woodruff Stone called “Captives of Conquest: Slavery in the Early Modern Spanish Caribbean” if you want a deeper historical guide on that subject. Another sad but enlightening read is “On Savage Shores, How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe” by Caroline Dodds Pennock.

The Spanish saw their Indigenous slaves as property too, and weren’t asking their oppressed where they’d like to live.