Final answer:
The Spanish brought enslaved Africans to Spain for plantation work, to cultivate cash crops such as sugarcane, tobacco, and rice, as they provided a reliable and skilled labor force for the New World's demanding agricultural industry.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Spanish brought enslaved people from West Africa primarily for plantation work, specifically to meet the labor demands of crop production like sugarcane, tobacco, and rice in the New World. This was bolstered by the fact that Spanish settlers, having viewed themselves as gentlemen, refrained from manual labor and instead sought after a reliable and controllable workforce. Contributing factors included the high mortality rate of Native Americans due to European diseases, the moral opposition by the Spanish clergy to the exploitation of Indigenous peoples, and the notion that Africans fulfilled the requirements needed for the grueling agricultural tasks in the New World environment.
Enslaved Africans were seen as ideal for these roles due to their agricultural skills, material cultural knowledge, and the adaptability to the New World's harsh conditions. With the introduction of sugar as a cash crop, the Spanish plantation system required a large and permanent labor supply. The European enslavement of Africans, facilitated by the mercantilist system and the race-based slavery that developed, was furthered by the profitability of the African slave trade and the exclusion of Christians from enslavement by the Catholic Church.
Ultimately, the labor of enslaved Africans was instrumental in the success of European colonial economies in the Americas, Europe's domination of global trade, and the cultural transformation of societies in the Western Hemisphere.