The Introduction to The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America alerts the reader to the book’s structure. Reséndez acknowledges that many readers are only familiar with African slavery in the Western Hemisphere. He notes that, “The very word ‘slavery’ brings to mind African bodies stuffed in the hold of a ship or white-aproned maids bustling in an antebellum home” (1). The purpose of The Other Slavery is to document the enslavement of Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean, central and northern Mexico, and the American Southwest. Reséndez uses the term “other slavery” because it targeted Indigenous peoples rather than Africans and involved a range of captivity and coercion forms.

Reséndez initially believed that the enslavement of Indigenous peoples was marginal, especially compared to African slavery. Sources on Indigenous slavery suggest otherwise. Indigenous and African slavery coexisted from the 16th through the late 19th century. One key difference is the legal status of the two kinds of slavery. African slavery is easier to track in historical records since it was legal. Since enslaved Africans crossed the Atlantic, there are ship and port records detailing their numbers and bills of sale. From these records it can be determined that there were 12.