Encomienda

An encomienda from the Spanish Crown granted the recipient the ability to control labor and collect tribute from an indigenous community in Spanish America as a reward for service, but as it came to be practiced in the colonies it amounted to little more than institutionalized SLAVERY for Native people.

Spanish colonists received encomiendas (“grants”) of indigenous labor and control of land for service to the Spanish Crown in return for the promise to teach Christianity and European life ways to the indigenous people entrusted to the recipient (encomendero). Most of the early encomenderos were CONQUiSTADORes, and they tended to view the encomiendas as their own private little kingdoms. Additionally, many encomenderos illegally coopted the right to administer justice within the domain of their encomiendas.

Unfortunately for the region’s indigenous inhabitants, the Spanish first firmly established this institution in the West Indies. From the Caribbean it spread to Mexico and then Peru, with encomiendas of the 16th century ranging in size from thousands to only a few hundred Natives. The encomienda proved to be a valuable tool in the Spanish conquest of Latin America. The institution expedited Spanish control of territory and facilitated the rapid introduction of Spanish culture and Catholicism to newly subjugated Native peoples. Although the system had many positive attributes for the Spanish government in the early years, over time many Spanish colonists abused Native workers and encomenderos often failed to educate the indigenous people under their control in the tenets of Spanish culture and/or Catholicism.

In most places encomenderos employed their indigenous workers to build the infrastructure for Spanish towns, raise livestock, grow crops for the Spanish and Native populations, and work in mines. The encomenderos used Indian labor to lay the foundation for their accumulation of fortunes and political power. Many of the early enco-miendas dominated the Spanish American economy and the political scene locally through the manipulation of town councils (cABILDOs). Some of these encomiendas developed into the large HAClENDAs that influenced Spanish America throughout and beyond the colonial era. The early enco-menderos used their positions of power and wealth to take advantage of later-arriving Spanish settlers.

In an effort to curb the growing power of the first encomenderos and eliminate the abuse that Native people suffered at their hands, the Spanish Crown issued the Laws of Burgos in 1512 and the New Laws in 1542. These laws limited the amount of personal tribute that could be collected, abolished personal servitude by Natives, and reorganized local and territorial governmental structures. These measures attacked the heart of the encomenderos’ power by limiting their access to wealth and their ability to control local government. Administrators appointed by the royal government finally gained the ability to collect tribute for the Spanish Crown, thereby depriving the encomenderos of one route to power. The government also encouraged the development of independent farmers, merchants, and mine owners, who eventually rose in power and prestige to challenge the encomenderos. Over time indigenous leaders took control of their cabildos, which limited encomendero political clout and ended some of the abuses that Natives suffered under the encomienda system.

Further reading: Mark A. Burkholder and Lyman L. Johnson, Colonial Latin America, 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469-1716 (London: Edward Arnold, 1963); Charles Gibson, Spain in America (New York: New American Library, 1977); C. H. Haring, The Spanish Empire in America, 3rd ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1963); James Lockhart, “Encomienda and Hacienda: The Evolution of the Great Estate in the Spanish Indies,” Hispanic American Historical Review 49 (1969): 411-429; Lesley B. Simpson, The Encomienda in New Spain: The Beginning of Spanish Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966).

—Dixie Ray Haggard