Women in the Americas in early modern North America. Throughout the Americas, bondage existed—in warmer climates, where plantation systems developed, or in the northern areas, where women were either transported as criminals or worked as indentured servants. As early as the 1530s, Portugal began using slave labor in Brazil to work sugarcane plantations. Initially, the Portuguese used indigenous people as slaves, but in 1574, the crown decreed that unless the native people were cannibals, already slaves, or were spoils of a "just war", they could not be enslaved. The Spanish also used native people as forced labor, but because under the "encomienda" system, neither
Our Lady, Queen of the Americas (Washington, D.C.) leased evenings during the week and on weekends to celebrate Mass in Spanish and Portuguese, and to teach English, basic skills and literacy classes. In 1986, the Capilla Latina (Latin Chapel in Spanish) became the Parish of Our Lady Queen of the Americas and Cuban-born Fr. José Somoza O.F.M. was appointed pastor. In 1989, the property and building at 2200 California Street, N. W., were transferred to Our Lady Queen of the Americas for the purpose of serving the Hispanic and Portuguese communities, and for building of the premises the Educational and Pastoral Center and the Church. To this day,