Labor, understood as an essential foundation of the capitalist system and of the processes of wealth generation and accumulation, as well as its role in colonial extractivist economies, constitutes an interpretive key for understanding various facets of European colonialism in the Americas. From the late fifteenth century onward, with the European expansion and occupation of the American continents, different forms of labor — enslaved, forced and wage labor — were performed by groups belonging to various social strata of colonial society, including native populations, captive Africans of multiple origins, and other individuals who took part in specific tasks within colonial productive structures. These forms of labor organization shaped an imperial strategy of political, economic and social domination driven by the European colonial powers. Over time, this process contributed to the construction of a global model of exploitation, coercion and subordination that was applied in other geographic spaces linked to European imperial expansion. In this context, a central question arises: why does it remain important to consider labor as a key category for understanding the history of colonial America? This symposium will seek to answer this question through novel research analyzing the social, political, economic and cultural dimensions of labor, from both local American perspectives and their global connections, paying special attention to the way these dynamics were articulated in different historical contexts of colonial experiences in the Americas.
