True, and lots of other horrors, too. There were also cultures that didn’t practice torture or chattel slavery. Before European exploitation the Americas were even less of cultural monolith than they are now.
But that doesn’t disprove the thesis that 21st century capitalist structures (like, for example, multinational corporations) were fundamentally created by the Transatlantic slave trade. Establishing shipping lines and plantations in the end generated far more wealth than just killing Indians for their gold, and because of disease and high mortality that was inflicted on both natives and invaders, and the relatively high cost of shipping free men, the slave trade was vital to the exploitation of American resources.
I recently read that slave-raised tobacco alone generated more income to Europeans than all the gold and gems the Conquistadors ever looted.
