Final answer:
Native Americans did not fulfill Spain and Portugal's need for plantation workers largely due to their rapid population decline caused by European diseases and their resistance to enslavement. Enslaved Africans became the preferred labor source due to their resistance to diseases and the vast supply available via the slave trade. option b is the correct answer.
Step-by-step explanation:
The reason why Native Americans did not fulfill Spain and Portugal's need for plantation workers is multifaceted. Native American populations rapidly declined due to European diseases to which they had no immunity. Moreover, they resisted enslavement and often escaped due to their knowledge of the land, making them unreliable as a labor force for the Europeans.
The indigenous people's profound depopulation and resistance, as well as the Spanish clergy's appeal to protect them from exploitation, prompted a shift towards importing laborers from Africa. Enslaved Africans proved to be a more dependable source of labor.
They were easily identifiable by skin color in the race-based system of slavery of the New World, and there was a substantial and seemingly infinite supply available through the transatlantic slave trade. This trade became a fundamental component of plantation agriculture, which was vital for the production of cash crops such as sugar and tobacco, demanded by European markets.
In addition, European colonists found the African slaves to be more resistant to the tropical diseases that plagued European indentured servants, who suffered from high death rates in the Caribbean. This, along with other factors such as the lifetime bondage of Africans as opposed to temporary servitude of Europeans, made enslaved Africans the preferred choice for plantation labor. Thus, while suppressing Native Americans was initially attempted, it was soon supplanted by the implementation of African slavery, which continued to fuel the colonial economies of Spain and Portugal.
Correct Answer
Based on this information, the correct option is b) The Native American population declined rapidly due to exposure to European diseases.