Chapter 2 offers a new understanding of Puebla's infamous textile mills or obrajes. Tracing their emergence and rapid expansion during the second half of the sixteenth century, obrajes became a mainstay of the economy by the 1570. The growth in textile production is explained by the arrival of Spanish migrants from Brihuega and the increasing scale of indigenous workforces within the obrajes. The first large, scale interaction between people of African and indigenous descent in Puebla took place within the confines of the textile mill. Most indigenous people were known as encerrados (locked-in people) and worked as quasi-slaves due to their inability to leave. Incoming African men experienced similar conditions, but relatively few African women lived in obrajes prior to 1630. Facing intense scrutiny for their continued exploitiation of indigenous people, textile mill owners increasingly purchased slaves of African and Asian descent, especially during the 1630s. The former also invested in slave marriages as a mechanism for retaining their workers. The economically-irrational transition to all-enslaved workforces was accomplished with a political agenda in mind, but would fail.