Why did europeans look to Africa for a source of labor use i the Americas?

Answer 1

Because the conditions were so brutal and European diseases so virulent that native American populations were decimated. The Spanish and Portuguese turned to Africans who were much more resistant to these viruses and conditions.

Answer 2

Initially the Spaniards intended to use the Indigenous Americans as a labor source, but a combination of Americans' inability to resist European diseases combined with the incredibly harsh work that they were put to led to vast decreases in the Indigenous American population. Current historians and anthropologists estimate that over 80% of the Indigenous American population was wiped out, especially in the Caribbean where smaller populations had prevented the development of any real disease immunities and the lack of central authority had not prepared them for arduous work. Comparatively, in the Andean Mountains and Central Mexico where the Inca and Aztec Empires had dominated, large Indigenous American populations remained, even after vast swathes were killed by disease and they were more able to deal with European labor demands because they were not much more intensive than what they had done in their previous imperial states.

However, with loss of such a numerous labor pool, the Spaniards had to import a new one. Africans had resistance to most of the same kinds of pathogens that were eviscerating the Indigenous American population and could withstand the hard work that was making short work of the natives in the Caribbean. As for why Africans were enslaved rather than convinced to come, it was cheaper to buy slaves from African Princes than to offer random Africans wages to come to the Americas and much more likely to create a consistent migration model. Spaniards did not want to learn hundreds of African languages to convince Africans to come to the colonies. If a few princes close to the water were willing to do all of the kidnapping and transfer a large quota of Africans to the Spanish on a timely basis, it was worth the enslavement.

Answer 3

european diseases wiped out much of the indigenous labor force