text: I Thought the enslavement of the natives didn't start until after the plagues hit the americas? The europeans were initinally looking for trade-connections and then found a continent with people. When they returned again the populations of the continent had been brought back to almost nothing incentivizing the Europeans to do everything they shouldn't have done but did.  ​ Besides, weren't it the mongols that brought it to europe? it was a side-effect of their conquest.  ​ I don't know why you think that what the europeans did was something so different than what the mongols did.