**The Indian American slave trade** Reséndez, Andrés. _The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America_. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016 There were between 2.5 million to 5 million Indian slaves taken in the New World from the time of Columbus to the end of the 19th century. This compares to a final tally of 12.5 million African slaves that cross the Atlantic. Whereas African slavery was legal because of racial prejudice and the struggle against Islam, Indian slavery was largely illegal. In the early 1500s, Spanish monarchs prohibited Indian slavery except in special cases, and there was a total ban after 1542. Because it was clandestine, and because no ship manifests or port records exist to document Indian slavery (no ocean had to be crossed), this history has been neglected. But a clear paper trail exists. Whilst West Africa suffered a population decline of 20 percent (it went from 25 million in 1700 to roughly 20 million in 1820), the indigenous peoples of the New World suffered population declines of 70-90 percent through a combination of warfare, famine, epidemics and slavery. A synergist relationship between slavery and epidemics has always existed. Slaving raids spread germs, but deceased slaves due to epidemics spurred more raids. Another interesting contrast to the African slave trade is that Indian slaves were primarily women and children. New Mexico Indian agent James Calhoun observed that Indian women could be worth up to 50 or 60 percent more than males. The women performed roles such as weaving, food gathering and child rearing, which were considered more valuable than the male roles of hunting and fishing. Spain dominated the Indian slave trade, whereas the English and Portuguese dominated the African slave trade. There are more than 15,000 books on African slavery, but only a couple of dozen specialized monographs on Indian slavery.