America has been founded on the principles of hard work and industry. From
its early beginnings with indentured servitude and chattel slavery to its more
republican and free-labor ideologies. Through the literature one may trace
this theme of labor from the early stages of the Spanish conquest of Central
and South America, to one of the bloodiest conflicts that ultimately abolished
chattel slavery and ushered in the free-labor system that we are currently under
today.