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The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military protection and education. The ''encomienda'' was first established in Spain following the Christian conquest of Moorish territories (known to Christians as the ''
Reconquista The ' ( Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the N ...
''), and it was applied on a much larger scale during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the
Spanish Philippines Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
. Conquered peoples were considered
vassal A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerai ...
s of the
Spanish monarch , coatofarms = File:Coat_of_Arms_of_Spanish_Monarch.svg , coatofarms_article = Coat of arms of the King of Spain , image = Felipe_VI_in_2020_(cropped).jpg , incumbent = Felipe VI , incumbentsince = 19 Ju ...
. The Crown awarded an ''encomienda'' as a grant to a particular individual. In the conquest era of the early sixteenth century, the grants were considered to be a
monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...
on the labour of particular groups of
indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
, held in perpetuity by the grant holder, called the ''encomendero''; following the
New Laws The New Laws ( Spanish: ''Leyes Nuevas''), also known as the New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians ( Spanish: ''Leyes y ordenanzas nuevamente hechas por su Majestad para la gobernación de las Indias y buen ...
of 1542, upon the death of the ''encomendero'', the encomienda ended and was replaced by the repartimiento. Encomiendas devolved from their original Iberian form into a form of "communal"
slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
. In the ''encomienda'', the Spanish Crown granted a person a specified number of natives from a specific community but did not dictate which individuals in the community would have to provide their labour. Indigenous leaders were charged with mobilising the assessed tribute and labour. In turn, ''encomenderos'' were to ensure that the ''encomienda'' natives were given instruction in
Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and the
Spanish language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the ...
, to protect them from warring tribes or
pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...
s; to suppress rebellion against Spaniards, and maintain infrastructure. The natives provided
tributes A tribute (; from Latin ''tributum'', "contribution") is wealth, often in kind, that a party gives to another as a sign of submission, allegiance or respect. Various ancient states exacted tribute from the rulers of land which the state conq ...
in the form of metals,
maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American English, North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples of Mexico, indigenous ...
, wheat, pork, and other agricultural products. With the ousting of
Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
in 1500, the Spanish Crown had him replaced with
Francisco de Bobadilla Francisco Fernández de Bobadilla (c. 1448 – 1 July 1502) was an official under the Crown of Castile and a knight of the Order of Calatrava. He was also the brother of Beatriz de Bobadilla, marchioness (''marquesa'') of Moya and of Peñalosa ...
. Bobadilla was succeeded by a royal governor, Fray
Nicolás de Ovando Frey Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres (1460 – 29 May 1511 or 1518) was a Spanish soldier from a noble family and a Knight of the Order of Alcántara, a military order of Spain. He was Governor of the Indies ( Hispaniola) from 1502 until 1509, s ...
, who established the formal ''encomienda'' system. In many cases natives were forced to do hard labour and subjected to extreme punishment and death if they resisted. However, Queen
Isabella I of Castile Isabella I ( es, Isabel I; 22 April 1451 – 26 November 1504), also called Isabella the Catholic (Spanish: ''la Católica''), was Queen of Castile from 1474 until her death in 1504, as well as Queen consort of Aragon from 1479 until 1504 b ...
forbade slavery of the native population and deemed the indigenous to be "free vassals of the crown". Various versions of the Laws of the Indies from 1512 onwards attempted to regulate the interactions between the settlers and natives. Both natives and Spaniards appealed to the
Real Audiencia A ''Real Audiencia'' (), or simply an ''Audiencia'' ( ca, Reial Audiència, Audiència Reial, or Audiència), was an appellate court in Spain and its empire. The name of the institution literally translates as Royal Audience. The additional de ...
s for relief under the ''encomienda'' system. ''Encomiendas'' have often been characterized by the geographical displacement of the enslaved and breakup of communities and family units, but in
New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the A ...
, the ''encomienda'' ruled the free vassals of the crown through existing community hierarchies, and the natives remained in their settlements with their families.


History

The heart of ''encomienda'' and ''encomendero'' lies in the Spanish verb ''encomendar'', "to entrust". The ''encomienda'' was based on the ''
reconquista The ' ( Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the N ...
'' institution in which '' adelantados'' were given the right to extract tribute from Muslims or other
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasa ...
s in areas that they had conquered and resettled. The ''encomienda'' system traveled to America as the result of the implantation of Castilian law over the territory. The system was created in the Middle Ages and was pivotal to allow for the repopulation and protection of frontier land during the ''reconquista''. This system originated in the Catholic south of Spain to extract labour and tribute from Muslims (Moors) before they were exiled in 1492 after the Moorish defeat in the Granada War. This system was a method of rewarding soldiers and moneymen who defeated the Moors. The ''encomienda'' established a system similar to a feudal relationship, in which military protection was traded for certain tributes or by specific work. It was especially prevalent among military orders that were entrusted with the protection of frontier areas. The king usually intervened directly or indirectly in the bond, by guaranteeing the fairness of the agreement and intervening militarily in case of abuse. The ''encomienda'' system in Spanish America differed from the Peninsular institution. The ''encomenderos'' did not own the land on which the natives lived. The system did not entail any direct land tenure by the ''encomendero''; native lands were to remain in the possession of their communities. This right was formally protected by the crown of Castile because the rights of administration in the
New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
belonged to this crown and not to the Catholic monarchs as a whole.


''Encomenderos''

The first grantees of the ''encomienda'' system, called ''encomenderos'', were usually conquerors who received these grants of labour by virtue of participation in a successful conquest. Later, some receiving ''encomiendas'' in
New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the A ...
(Mexico) were not conquerors themselves but were sufficiently well connected that they received grants. In his study of the ''encomenderos'' of early colonial Mexico, Robert Himmerich y Valencia divides conquerors into those who were part of Hernán Cortés' original expedition, calling them "first conquerors", and those who were members of the later Narváez expedition, calling them "conquerors". The latter were incorporated into Cortes' contingent. Himmerich designated as ''pobladores antiguos'' (old settlers) a group of undetermined number of ''encomenderos'' in New Spain, men who had resided in the Caribbean region prior to the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. In the New World, the Crown granted ''conquistadores'' as ''encomendero'', which is the right to extract labour and tribute from natives who were under Spanish rule. Columbus established the ''encomienda'' system after his arrival and settlement on the island of Hispaniola requiring the natives to pay tributes or face brutal punishments. Tributes were required to be paid in gold. However, during this time gold was scarce. Some women and some indigenous elites were also ''encomenderos''. Maria Jaramillo, the daughter of
Marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : ''marina'', "coast" or "shore") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or ...
and conqueror Juan Jaramillo, received income from her deceased father's ''encomiendas''. Two of Moctezuma's daughters, Isabel Moctezuma and her younger sister, Leonor Moctezuma, were granted extensive ''encomiendas'' in perpetuity by Hernán Cortés. Leonor Moctezuma married in succession two Spaniards, and left the ''encomiendas'' to her daughter by her second husband.
Vassal A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerai ...
Inca rulers appointed after the conquest also sought and were granted ''encomiendas''. The ''encomienda'' was essential to the Spanish crown's sustaining its control over North, Central and South America in the first decades after the colonization. It was the first major organizational law instituted on the continent, which was affected by war, widespread disease epidemics caused by Eurasian diseases, and resulting turmoil. Initially, the ''encomienda'' system was devised to meet the needs of the early agricultural economies in the Caribbean. Later it was adopted to the mining economy of Peru and Upper Peru. The ''encomienda'' lasted from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the seventeenth century. Philip II enacted a law on 11 June 1594 to establish the ''encomienda'' in the Philippines, where he made grants to the local nobles ('' principalía''). They used the ''encomienda'' to gain ownership of large expanses of land, many of which (such as
Makati Makati ( ), officially the City of Makati ( fil, Lungsod ng Makati), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the National Capital Region of the Philippines. Makati is the financial center of the Philippines; it has the highest concentration ...
) continue to be owned by affluent families.


Establishment

In 1501
Isabella I of Castile Isabella I ( es, Isabel I; 22 April 1451 – 26 November 1504), also called Isabella the Catholic (Spanish: ''la Católica''), was Queen of Castile from 1474 until her death in 1504, as well as Queen consort of Aragon from 1479 until 1504 b ...
declared Native Americans as subjects to the Crown, and so, as Castilians and legal equals to Spanish Castilians. This implied that enslaving them was illegal except under very specific conditions. It also allowed the establishment of ''encomiendas'', since the ''encomienda'' bond was a right reserved to full subjects to the crown. In 1503, the crown began to formally grant ''encomiendas'' to conquistadors and officials as rewards for service to the crown. The system of ''encomiendas'' was aided by the crown's organizing the indigenous into small harbors known as ''
reducciones Reductions ( es, reducciones, also called ; , pl. ) were settlements created by Spanish rulers and Roman Catholic missionaries in Spanish America and the Spanish East Indies (the Philippines). In Portuguese-speaking Latin America, such red ...
'', with the intent of establishing new towns and populations. Each ''reducción'' had a native chief responsible for keeping track of the labourers in his community. The ''encomienda'' system did not grant people land, but it indirectly aided in the settlers' acquisition of land. As initially defined, the ''encomendero'' and his heirs expected to hold these grants in perpetuity. After a major Crown reform in 1542, known as the
New Laws The New Laws ( Spanish: ''Leyes Nuevas''), also known as the New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians ( Spanish: ''Leyes y ordenanzas nuevamente hechas por su Majestad para la gobernación de las Indias y buen ...
, ''encomendero'' families were restricted to holding the grant for two generations. When the Crown attempted to implement the policy in Peru, shortly after the 1535 Spanish conquest, Spanish recipients rebelled against the Crown, killing the viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela. In Mexico, viceroy Antonio de Mendoza decided against implementing the reform, citing local circumstances and the potential for a similar conqueror rebellion. To the crown he said, "I obey crown authority but do not comply with this order." The ''encomienda'' system was ended legally in 1720, when the crown attempted to abolish the institution. The ''encomenderos'' were then required to pay remaining ''encomienda'' labourers for their work. The ''encomiendas'' became very corrupt and harsh. In the neighborhood of La Concepción, north of Santo Domingo, the '' adelantado'' of Santiago heard rumors of a 15,000-man army planning to stage a rebellion. Upon hearing this, the ''adelantado'' captured the ''
cacique A ''cacique'' (Latin American ; ; feminine form: ''cacica'') was a tribal chieftain of the Taíno people, the indigenous inhabitants at European contact of the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. The term is a S ...
s'' involved and had most of them hanged. Later, a chieftain named
Guarionex Guarionex (Taíno language: ''"The Brave Noble Lord"'') was a Taíno cacique from Maguá in the island of Hispaniola at the time of the arrival of the Europeans to the Western Hemisphere in 1492. He was the son of cacique Guacanagarix, the grea ...
laid havoc to the countryside before an army of about 3,090 routed the Ciguana people under his leadership. Although expecting Spanish protection from warring tribes, the islanders sought to join the Spanish forces. They helped the Spaniards deal with their ignorance of the surrounding environment. As noted, the change of requiring the ''encomendado'' to be returned to the crown after two generations was frequently overlooked, as the colonists did not want to give up the labour or power. The ''Codice Osuna'', one of many colonial-era Aztec codices (indigenous manuscripts) with native pictorials and alphabetic text in Nahuatl, there is evidence that the indigenous were well aware of the distinction between indigenous communities held by individual ''encomenderos'' and those held by the Crown.


Reform and abolition


Initial controversies

The ''encomienda'' system was the subject of controversy in Spain and its territories almost from its start. In 1510, an Hispaniola ''encomendero'' named Valenzuela murdered a group of Native American leaders who had agreed to meet for peace talks in full confidence. The Taíno ''cacique'' Enriquillo rebelled against the Spaniards between 1519 and 1533. In 1538,
Emperor Charles V Charles V, french: Charles Quint, it, Carlo V, nl, Karel V, ca, Carles V, la, Carolus V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain ( Castile and Aragon) fr ...
, realizing the seriousness of the Taíno revolt, changed the laws governing the treatment of people labouring in the ''encomiendas''. Conceding to Las Casas's viewpoint, the peace treaty between the Taínos and the '' audiencia'' was eventually disrupted in four to five years. The crown also actively prosecuted abuses of the ''encomienda'' system, through the Laws of Burgos (1512–13) and the New Laws of the Indies (1542). The priest of Hispaniola and former ''encomendero'' Bartolomé de las Casas underwent a profound conversion after seeing the abuse of the native people. He dedicated his life to writing and lobbying to abolish the ''encomienda'' system, which he thought systematically enslaved the native people of the New World. Las Casas participated in an important debate, where he pushed for the enactment of the New Laws and an end to the ''encomienda'' system. The Laws of Burgos and the New Laws of the Indies failed in the face of colonial opposition and, in fact, the New Laws were postponed in the Viceroyalty of Peru. When Blasco Núñez Vela, the first viceroy of Peru, tried to enforce the New Laws, which provided for the gradual abolition of the ''encomienda'', many of the ''encomenderos'' were unwilling to comply with them and revolted against him.


The New Laws of 1542

When the news of this situation and of the abuse of the institution reached Spain, the New Laws were passed to regulate and gradually abolish the system in America, as well as to reiterate the prohibition of enslaving Native Americans. By the time the new laws were passed, in 1542, the Spanish crown had acknowledged their inability to control and properly ensure compliance of traditional laws overseas, so they granted to Native Americans specific protections not even Spaniards had, such as the prohibition of enslaving them even in the case of crime or war. These extra protections were an attempt to avoid the proliferation of irregular claims to slavery. The liberation of thousands of Native Americans held in bondage throughout the Spanish empire by the new viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela, on his journey to Peru, led to his eventual murder and armed conflict between the ''encomenderos'' and the Spanish crown which ended with the execution of those ''encomenderos'' involved.


Final abolition

In most of the Spanish domains acquired in the 16th century the ''encomienda'' phenomenon lasted only a few decades. However, in Peru and New Spain the ''encomienda'' institution lasted much longer. In Chiloé Archipelago in southern Chile, where the ''encomienda'' had been abusive enough to unleash a revolt in 1712, the ''encomienda'' was abolished in 1782. In the rest of Chile it was abolished in 1789, and in the whole Spanish empire in 1791.


''Repartimiento''

The ''encomienda'' system was generally replaced by the crown-managed '' repartimiento'' system throughout Spanish America after mid-sixteenth century. Like the ''encomienda'', the new ''repartimiento'' did not include the attribution of land to anyone, rather only the allotment of native workers. But they were directly allotted to the Crown, who, through a local Crown official, would assign them to work for settlers for a set period of time, usually several weeks. The ''repartimiento'' was an attempt "to reduce the abuses of forced labour". As the number of natives declined and mining activities were replaced by agricultural activities in the seventeenth century, the hacienda, or large landed estates in which labourers were directly employed by the hacienda owners (''hacendados''), arose because land ownership became more profitable than acquisition of forced labour.


Deaths, disease, and accusations of ethnocide or genocide

Raphael Lemkin (coiner of the term
genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...
) considers Spain's abuses of the native population of the Americas to constitute cultural and even outright genocide, including the abuses of the ''encomienda'' system. He described slavery as "cultural genocide par excellence" noting "it is the most effective and thorough method of destroying culture, of desocializing human beings". Economic historian Timothy J. Yeager argued the ''encomienda'' was deadlier than conventional slavery because of an individual labourer's life being disposable in the face of simply being replaced with a labourer from the same plot of land. University of Hawaii historian
David Stannard David Edward Stannard (born 1941) is an American historian and Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii. He is particularly known for his book '' American Holocaust'' (Oxford University Press, 1992), in which he argues that Europea ...
describes the ''encomienda'' as a genocidal system which "had driven many millions of native peoples in Central and South America to early and agonizing deaths". Yale University's genocide studies program supports this view regarding abuses in Hispaniola.Hispaniola Case Study: Colonial Genocides. Date range of image:1492 to 1514 https://gsp.yale.edu/case-studies/colonial-genocides-project/hispaniola The program cites the decline of the Taíno population of Hispaniola in 1492 to 1514 as an example of genocide and notes that the indigenous population declined from a population between 100,000 and 1,000,000 to only 32,000 a decline of 68% to over 96%. Historian Andrés Reséndez contends that enslavement in gold and silver mines was the primary reason why the Native American population of Hispaniola dropped so significantly, as the conditions that native peoples were subjected to under enslavement, from forced relocation to hours of hard labour, contributed to the spread of disease. For example, according to anthropologist
Jason Hickel Jason Edward Hickel (born 1982) is an economic anthropologist whose research focuses on ecological economics, global inequality, imperialism and political economy. He is known for his books ''The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and ...
, a third of
Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greate ...
workers died every six months from forced labour in the mines.


Skepticism toward accusations of genocide

Skepticism towards accusations of genocide linked to the ''encomienda'' and the Spanish conquest and settlement of the Americas typically involve arguments like those of Noble David Cook, wherein scholars posit that accusations of genocide are a continuation of the
Spanish Black Legend The Black Legend ( es, Leyenda negra) or the Spanish Black Legend ( es, Leyenda negra española, link=no) is a theorised historiographical tendency which consists of anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic propaganda. Its proponents argue that its ro ...
. Writing about the Black Legend and the
conquest of the Americas During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizing Greenland and creating a short ter ...
, Cook wrote, "There were too few Spaniards to have killed the millions who were reported to have died in the first century after Old and New World contact" and instead suggests the near total decimation of the indigenous population of Hispaniola as mostly having been caused by diseases like
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
. He argues that the Spanish unwittingly carried these diseases to the New World.


See also

* Cargo system * Encomiendas in Peru * Gregorio de San Juan * Historiography of Colonial Spanish America * Jesuit reductions * Reductions *
Serfdom Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develop ...


References


Further reading

* * * * Chamberlain, Robert S., "Simpson's the Encomienda in New Spain and Recent Encomienda Studies" ''The Hispanic American Historical Review'' 34.2 (May 1954):238–250. * Gibson, Charles, ''The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule''. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1964. * *Himmerich y Valencia, Robert (1991). ''The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521–1555''. Austin: University of Texas Press. . * * Lockhart, James, "Encomienda and Hacienda: The Evolution of the Great Estate in the Spanish Indies," ''Hispanic American Historical Review'' 49, no. 3 (1969) * *Ramirez, Susan E. "Encomienda" in ''Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture'', vol. 2, pp. 492–3. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1996. *Simpson, Leslie Byrd Simpson, ''The Encomienda in New Spain: The Beginning of Spanish Mexico'' (1950) * * Zavala, Silvio. ''De Encomienda y Propiedad Territorial en Algunas Regiones de la América Española''. Mexico City: Aurrúa 1940.


External links


Encomienda
''Encyclopædia Britannica''
Spain's American Colonies and the Encomienda System
ThoughtCo. September 10, 2018 {{DEFAULTSORT:Encomienda Spanish colonization of the Americas Spanish West Indies Captaincy General of the Philippines Colonial Puerto Rico Unfree labour History of labour relations in Chile Slavery in Spain