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
Women in the Americas Women in the Americas Women in the Americas are women who were born in, who live in, and are from the Americas, a regional area which encompasses the Caribbean region, Central America or Middle America, North America and South America. Their evolution, culture and history coincide with the history of the Americas, though often the experiences of women were different than those of male members of society. The differences in women's experiences often had to do with division of labor or constraints placed on them due to traditional roles in society. The effects of slavery, bondage and colonization has had