The Native Americans back then were forced to pay tribute and provide labor to Spanish landowners because the Portuguese and the Spanish found wealth through resource extraction, creating damaging effects on the environment. The colonial practices of farming also resulted in deforestation, overgrazing, and over cultivation of crops, and in order to maintain a supply of labor, the Native Americans had to do just that. In peru, the Spaniards gave permission to authorities to draft native people to work in the mines, which is known as the mita. The system of peasants and landowners were attributed in the society.
THE COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE
The supply of gold and silver in Latin America helped finance Spain's wars. Besides gold and silver, other products such as sugar, tobacco, corn, potatoes, and peanuts. While in return, Latin America received cattle horses, sugar, wheat, bananas, and bees. However, the arrival of the Europeans meant death for the natives. Those diseases included small pox, typhus (lice), cholera (unbroken chain of infections), and measles (comes from cattle). By 1595, over 18 million people have died of diseases.