Some women and some indigenous elites were also encomenderos. Raphael Lemkin's History of Genocide and Colonialism, Holocaust Memorial Museum, 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom, Marriage of enslaved people (United States), Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Historiography of Colonial Spanish America, "A History of the Mexican-American People", "Blasco Nez Vela Cronologa histrica", "La encomienda en hispanoamrica colonial", "La rebelin indgena de 1712: los tributarios de Chilo contra la encomienda", https://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/speakers-and-events/all-speakers-and-events/raphael-lemkin-history-of-genocide-and-colonialism, "The new book 'The Other Slavery' will make you rethink American history", "Encomienda, Hacienda, and Corregimiento in Spanish America: A Structural Analysis", Spain's American Colonies and the Encomienda System, Independence of Spanish continental Americas, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, northernmost France, Colonial universities in Hispanic America, Law of coartacin (which allowed slaves to buy their freedom, and that of others), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Encomienda&oldid=1142735044, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from July 2022, Articles with dead external links from December 2019, Articles with permanently dead external links, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2023, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Chamberlain, Robert S., "Simpson's the Encomienda in New Spain and Recent Encomienda Studies", This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 02:28. "Encomienda A Bishop and a Scholar Bartolome must have rejoiced, but he knew he faced a struggle as he returned to the New World . 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. What was the encomienda system? Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. succeed. An alternative to encomienda was repartimiento (partition). Slaves could be sold, and their families would break. The Spanish crown reluctantly approved the granting of encomiendas because it needed to reward the conquistadors and establish a system of governance in the newly-conquered territories, and the encomiendas were a quick-fix that killed both birds with one stone. The grant of an encomienda gave the grantee, the encomendero, the right to collect tribute from a community of indigenous . (February 23, 2023). With Indigenous governments such as the efficient Inca Empire in ruins, the Spanish conquistadorsneeded to find a way to rule their new subjects. Mira Caballos, Esteban. Encomienda spread with the spread of Spanish colonies and became a common feature of their economies. Note that conditions for indigenous workers remained particularly brutal in Peru, even under repartimiento. Slaves have few legal protections. Tributes were required to be paid in gold. Those families that held land would eventually become oligarchies that controlled the Indigenous people. Spain's American Colonies and the Encomienda System. The same title was granted to colonial leaders. It placed hundreds and sometimes thousands of Indians under the control of individual Spaniards at a time when a bureaucracy had not yet been established. Native Peruvians were to have their rights as citizens of Spain and could not be forced to work if they did not want to. Adoption of an encomienda system of labor and tribute in Spanish colonies was expected under any circumstances. Existing encomiendas would pass to the crown upon the death of the encomendero, and no new encomiendas were to be granted. The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America (Kindle Locations 338-341). [32], Raphael Lemkin (coiner of the term genocide) considered Spain's abuses of the native population of the Americas to constitute cultural and even outright genocide, including the abuses of the encomienda system. While the conquistadors were wringing every last speck of gold from their miserable subjects, the ghastly reports of abuses piled up in Spain. The encomienda was thereafter renewed (or not) on an individual basis, at the death of the previous encomienda holder; assigned a steep transfer tax; and gradually eliminated, except on the frontiers of the empire (e.g., Paraguay). The New Laws abolished Indian slavery and also ended the encomienda system. . Spanish conquistadors, settlers, priests, or colonial officials were given a repartimiento, or grant of land. ", Fuente, Alejandro de la. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. One chief source of abuse, the encomienda system, was not abolished until the end of the 18th century. They invested revenues generated by their encomienda laborers in stock-raising enterprises. While different in detail, the encomienda system is similar to practices employed by the Roman Empire and the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Normans in their conquests of the British Isles. "Nicols de Ovando" in. 3 (1969): 411-429. Encomienda y encomenderos en el Peru: Estudio social y politico de una institucion colonial. [28] In the rest of Chile it was abolished in 1789, and in the whole Spanish empire in 1791. [7][pageneeded], The heart of encomienda and encomendero lies in the Spanish verb encomendar, "to entrust". It seems counter-productive to kill off your own workers, but the Spanish conquistadors in question were only interested in getting as rich as they could as quickly as they could: this greed led directly to hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Indigenous population. In the conquest era of the early sixteenth century, the grants were considered to be a monopoly on the labour of particular groups of indigenous peoples, held in perpetuity by the grant holder, called the encomendero; following the New Laws of 1542, upon the death of the encomendero, the encomienda ended and was replaced by the repartimiento.[1][2]. The word encomienda comes from the Spanish word encomendar, meaning "to entrust." The New Laws removed all hope of perpetuity being granted. Tannenbaum and the Debates on Slavery, Emancipation, and Race Relations in Latin America,". Despus de Col: Trabajo, sociedad, y poltica en la economa del oro. The other major form of coerced labor in their colonies, the encomienda system, was also abolished, . Identify the key characteristics of the repartimiento system. The encomienda system was patterned after the practice of extracting tribute from Jews and Muslims during the final episode of the Reconquista (reconquest) of Muslim Spain. The Second Emancipation Proclamation is the term applied to an envisioned executive order that Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the Civil Rights Movement enjoined President John F. Kennedy to issue. However, in the most remote areas, encomiendas were often kept throughout the colonial period in complete defiance of the royal decree in order to populate these regions. They held a monopoly of local political power as the only persons able to sit on the town council. Fuente, Alejandro de la. Walker, Tamara J. a system in which land was distributed to the native people. They did not change the quotas even when crops failed or disasters struck: many Native Peruvians were forced to choose between fulfilling quotas and starving to death or failing to meet quotas and facing the often-lethal punishment of the overseers. Encyclopedia.com. This system was fundamental to the economics of early Spanish colonialism. [18] Upon hearing this, the adelantado captured the caciques involved and had most of them hanged. In reality, indigenous people were forced to provide labor. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Spaniards were awarded the lands occupied by the Native Americans whom they had conquered. [37][38] For example, according to anthropologist Jason Hickel, a third of Arawak workers died every six months from forced labour in the mines. Along the way, The king bound himself "that the slave trade will be abolished in all the dominions of Spain, May 30, 1820, and that after that date it shall not be lawful for . It was essentially enslavement, given but a thin (and illusory) veneer of respectability for the Catholic education that it implied. The crown also actively prosecuted abuses of the encomienda system, through the Laws of Burgos (151213) and the New Laws of the Indies (1542). Encomienda (roughly translated: trustee) was a formal system of forced labor in Spanish colonies in Latin America and the Philippines, intended to encourage conquest and colonization. In the sixteenth century, encomiendas ranged in size from as many as 23,000 heads of households (Corts's personal encomienda) to a few hundred in some areas of Central America and Peru. The system was created in the Middle Ages and was pivotal to allow for the repopulation and protection of frontier land during the reconquista. Pizarro defeated Viceroy Nez, who was killed in battle, and basically ruled Peru for two years before another royalist army defeated him; Pizarro was captured and executed. Hispanic American Historical Review 51, no. The encomienda system traveled to America as the result of the implantation of Castilian law over the territory. ." Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Each reduccin had a native chief responsible for keeping track of the labourers in his community. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. The colonial elite was livid with rage when the provisions of the New Laws became known. The encomienda system was a slavery system except that the enslaved could not be sold off the land. The system did, however, result in loss of life and freedom, which was similar to the loss under chattel slavery and cruelty on a historic scale. . In the Americas, the first encomiendas were handed out by Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean. It refers to a system that was used by Spain in the New World to reward the conquistadors (conquerors). Their wealth, political power, influence, and prestige as conquerors and first settlers (later transferred to their descendants) made them almost omnipotent and, as such, independent of the wishes of the crown. ." The first record of Lopez granting encomendero status was in 1572, though earlier grants are possible. Both natives and Spaniards appealed to the Real Audiencias for relief under the encomienda system. The impact of encomienda is difficult to separate from the general impact of Spanish colonization. The fact that the settlers rebelled, fought and died to fight the New Laws only shows how deeply they had sunk into greed and cruelty. Although there were never enough such grants to reward all those who felt they deserved one, the encomienda proved a useful institution, from the crown's point of view, in the first two or three decades after the discovery and conquest of the New World kingdoms of Mexico and Peru. This lucidly shows that the encomienda system was dichotomous to slavery. Ovando was a Knight of the Order of Alcantara, which fought the Moors during the Reconquista. 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. It was usually the land that had belonged to the Moorish leader of the conquered territory. The crowns attempts to end the severe abuses of the system with the Laws of Burgos (151213) and the New Law of the Indies (1542) failed in the face of colonial opposition.
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