when was the encomienda system abolished
This system was fundamental to the economics of early Spanish colonialism. In turn, encomenderos were to ensure that the encomienda natives were given instruction in Catholicism and the Spanish language, to protect them from warring tribes or pirates; to suppress rebellion against Spaniards, and maintain infrastructure. In many areas it had been abandoned for other forms of labor. Leonor Moctezuma married in succession two Spaniards, and left the encomiendas to her daughter by her second husband. Himmerich y Valencia, Robert. Ostend Manifesto of 1854 Overview & Purpose | What was the Ostend Manifesto? Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995. The encomienda dates back to earlier times. Encomiendas have often been characterized by the geographical displacement of the enslaved and breakup of communities and family units, but in New Spain, the encomienda ruled the free vassals of the crown through existing community hierarchies, and the natives remained in their settlements with their families. The system was created in the Middle Ages and was pivotal to allow for the repopulation and protection of frontier land during the reconquista. In 1542, due to the constant protests of Las Casas and others, the Council of the Indies wrote and King Charles V enacted the New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians. Las Casas participated in an important debate, where he pushed for the enactment of the New Laws and an end to the encomienda system. a noble attempt to care for the native people. New Spain | Spanish Explorers & Spanish Colonies, Growth of Independent Trading Cities in the Renaissance. The encomienda system began in the early 16th century, and continued till the beginning of the 18th century in most parts of the New World. Missionaries there had . Spanish Casta System Overview & Purpose | What was the Casta System? Thus began an institution that supported a class of powerful individuals, created by royal fiat, that would figure prominently in the history of the New World for the next century and into the eighteenth century on the fringes of the Spanish New World empire. Kindle Edition. After the Spanish established a colony in the Rio Grande valley in 1598, they seized Indian land and crops and forced Indians to labor, In its most general sense, this word means "estate" or "all worldly possessions of an individual." [6] Various versions of the Laws of the Indies from 1512 onwards attempted to regulate the interactions between the settlers and natives. Reading them today, the New Laws do not seem radical they provide for basic human rights such as the right to be paid for work and the right to not be unreasonably taxed. 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. What was the. Christopher Minster, Ph.D., is a professor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador. Spanish colonists wanted indigenous people alive to provide labor. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/encomienda. This was the case when and where encomenderos used their positions of authorityon the town council, for exampleto grant themselves land parcels (mercedes) from among the lands once used by their Indian charges. succeed. Lima: IEP, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2000. 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. Their wealth and their status as first-and second-generation conquerors gave them the leisure and respect that enabled them to exercise an early monopoly of the town councils. Dominican priests played an important role in the movement to abolish it. Las Casas wrote extensively about his life in Hispaniola and in Cuba, including the treatment of indigenous people. Presta, Ana Mara. The encomienda system was one of the many horrors inflicted on the Indigenous people of the New World during the conquest and colonial eras. . Ed. This right was formally protected by the crown of Castile because the rights of administration in the New World belonged to this crown and not to the Catholic monarchs as a whole.[10]. The goal of encomienda was, at least initially, to generate portable wealth. The Spanish crown was in a tough spot: the "royal fifth," or 20% tax on conquests and mining in the New World, was fueling the expansion of the Spanish Empire. The encomenderos were then required to pay remaining encomienda laborers for their work. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Jeff Wallenfeldt. Deaths, disease, and accusations of ethnocide or genocide, Skepticism toward accusations of genocide, Noble, David Cook. Native Peruvians were to have their rights as citizens of Spain and could not be forced to work if they did not want to. In Peru, most of the settlers had taken part in the conquistador civil wars and could, therefore, lose their encomiendas immediately. Portugal satisfied labor demand in the sixteenth century via . Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. Many priests and Catholic brothers were appalled at the treatment of indigenous people under 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". That grant of labor accompanied a grant of land use. The encomenderos did not own the land on which the natives lived. Enrolling in a course lets you earn progress by passing quizzes and exams. Tannenbaum and the Debates on Slavery, Emancipation, and Race Relations in Latin America,". "Encomienda Those families that held land would eventually become oligarchies that controlled the Indigenous people. The Spanish Crown conceived of encomienda as being relatively protective of indigenous people but did not succeed in making it so. Retrieved February 23, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/encomienda. "Encomienda Encomienda system: A labor system in which the Spanish crown authorized Spaniards, known as encomenderos, to enslave native people to farm and mine in the Americas. They used the encomienda to gain ownership of large expanses of land, many of which (such as Makati) continue to be owned by affluent families.[16]. The origins of the institution in the Americas dates back to 1497 when Christopher Columbus assigned native communities to Francisco Rold and his men. The Spanish monarchs abolished the encomienda system when they realized how cruel and abusive it was. o In return, the encomendero had to protect the natives, ensure their conversion to Christianity, and . ." Conquistadors were fortune hunters granted authority by the Spanish Crown to establish colonies. [5] However, Queen Isabella I of Castile forbade slavery of the native population and deemed the indigenous to be "free vassals of the crown". Madrid: Historia 16, 1987, folios 547[561]-559[573]. [36] Historian Andrs Resndez 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. Encyclopedia.com. Each reduccin had a native chief responsible for keeping track of the labourers in his community. [23] 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. They screened applicants for formal citizen status in the town and gave out house lots and suburban lands for kitchen gardens and orchards. Francisco Pizarro, the second cousin to Cortes, began the conquest of Peru and helped destroy the Incan Empire; he was the illegitimate and possibly illiterate son of a military officer. To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. Mistreated by their supposed protectors and exposed to European diseases (such as smallpox, and measles) to which they had no immunity, the Indians died in large numbers. They held a monopoly of local political power as the only persons able to sit on the town council. Encomienda that requires extensive use of forced labor simply did not have enough people to function. Some women and some indigenous elites were also encomenderos. They were granted the right to compel indigenous people to work their land and to pay tribute. Love, Edgar F. "Negro Resistance to Spanish Rule in Colonial Mexico," Journal of Negro History 52, no. 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. The son of a merchant who would accompany Christopher Columbus on his second voyage and, PUEBLO REVOLT. Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. Encyclopedia.com gives you the ability to cite reference entries and articles according to common styles from the Modern Language Association (MLA), The Chicago Manual of Style, and the American Psychological Association (APA). 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. John Murra, Rolena Adorno & Jorge L. Urioste. Although the encomienda was not officially abolished until the late 18th century, in September 1721 the conferment of new encomiendas in Spain's colonies was prohibited. Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. The crown also actively prosecuted abuses of the encomienda system, through the Laws of Burgos (151213) and the New Laws of the Indies (1542). Hernn Corts granted the first encomiendas in Mexico, and Francisco Pizarro did so in Peru. Encyclopedia.com. In most Spanish colonies, encomienda ended within a few decades of its introduction. In the Americas, the first encomiendas were handed out by Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean. The Encomenderos of New Spain, 15211555. Colonization would have destroyed local cultures no matter the labor system imposed. In the New Laws of 1542, he abolished slavery and ended the encomienda system. ." Image retrieved from alamy.com highlighting the treatment of Amerindians by the Spaniards. . Under Crown law, a few days of labor was all that people owed. Later, some receiving encomiendas in New Spain (Mexico) were not conquerors themselves but were sufficiently well connected that they received grants. Gibbings, Julie. These extra protections were an attempt to avoid the proliferation of irregular claims to slavery. Identify the key characteristics of the repartimiento system. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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. Best Answer. 2 See answers Advertisement They found him unyielding in his zeal to implement the laws, so they beheaded him, setting off a civil war that was not totally quelled until 1549. Encomenderos ignored the terms of the grant and demanded as much labor as could be had. The task of collecting tribute and overseeing the Indian communities was given to the corregidor de indios, a district administrator or governor, who was part of the bureaucratic apparatus established by the crown to regain control of the New World kingdoms from the all-powerful encomenderos. . However, the date of retrieval is often important. In Mexico, the system was abolished in 1917 after the Mexican revolution of 1911. The encomienda was a grant of the right to use labor and exact tribute from a given group of natives conveyed to a person in return for service to the Spanish crown. The latter were incorporated into Cortes' contingent. Guamn Poma de Ayala, Felipe. El indio antillano: Repartimiento, encomienda y esclavitud (14921542). Encomiendas devolved from their original Iberian form into a form of "communal" slavery. One fact essential to understanding the history of the encomienda system is that millions of indigenous people died of diseases brought by colonists to the Americas, as well as from war and the brutality of colonization. . Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/spains-american-colonies-encomienda-system-2136545. Black Legend History & Culture | What is the Black Legend? Bartolome de las Casas: Destruction of the Amerindians, Las Casas, Valladolid Debate & Converting the New World, The Pueblo Revolt of 1680: Lesson for Kids. The receiver of the grant, the encomendero, could exact tribute from the Indios in gold, in kind, or in labour and was required to protect them and instruct them in the Christian faith. Encyclopedia.com. . Population Collapse: Aztec Smallpox Victims. Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History. Some even became silent partners with merchants involved in lucrative import and export activities. In time, royal officials made such grants with conditions: that the encomenderos marry, live in a nearby town, Christianize the natives, and protect and treat them benevolently. The encomenderos were then required to pay remaining encomienda labourers for their work. Journey to the New World. 3 (1969): 411-429. It was viewed as a vulgar act and below Western humanitarian . In reality, however, the encomienda system was thinly-masked enslavement and led to some of the worst horrors of the colonial era. The encomienda system traveled to America as the result of the implantation of Castilian law over the territory. In Bolivia and Peru, revolutions and influential leaders helped to eliminate the hacienda system from these countries. 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. It was essentially enslavement, given but a thin (and illusory) veneer of respectability for the Catholic education that it implied. In the neighborhood of La Concepcin, north of Santo Domingo, the adelantado of Santiago heard rumors of a 15,000-man army planning to stage a rebellion. Gonzalo Pizarro's supporters had urged him to declare himself King of Peru, but he refused: had he done so, Peru might have successfully split from Spain 300 years early. (February 23, 2023). On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. "Encomienda In reality though, the declaration of equality did not end the . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In the Pacific, Spain competed with English, Dutch, Malay, Chinese and Muslim interests. Leaders of the Reconquista were granted the title of adelantado (one who goes in advance) with the authority to establish control on behalf of the Crown. Once the encomiendas reverted to the crown, they were overseen by corregidores, royal agents who administered crown holdings. Minster, Christopher. 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. Indigenous leaders were charged with mobilising the assessed tribute and labour. Foner, Laura, and Eugene D. Genovese, eds. morganarmstrong380 morganarmstrong380 03/31/2021 History . Although the original intent of the encomienda was to reduce the abuses of forced labour (repartimiento) employed shortly after Europeans 15th-century discovery of the New World, in practice it became a form of enslavement. Soldiers were fed and perhaps armed by their leaders but not paid. That can reasonably be seen as ethnocide. [9] The encomienda established a system similar to a feudal relationship, in which military protection was traded for certain tributes or by specific work. 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. 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. [12][13][14] Vassal Inca rulers appointed after the conquest also sought and were granted encomiendas. 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. 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. In certain areas, this quasi-feudal system persisted. An encomienda in Peru was a reward offered to each of the men under the leadership of Francisco Pizarro who began the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532. The appointment of Nicolas de Ovando to Hispaniola made it close to inevitable. Encomenderos were in the habit of resisting limits, and they opposed the New Laws. The king usually intervened directly or indirectly in the bond, by guaranteeing the fairness of the agreement and intervening militarily in case of abuse. With the catastrophic decline in the Indian population and the replacement of mining activities by agriculture in Spanish America, the system lost its effectiveness and was gradually replaced by the hacienda system of landed estates. The natives provided tributes in the form of metals, maize, wheat, pork, and other agricultural products. The rebellion and civil war in the Andes together with continuing news of the unchecked mistreatment of the natives and their dwindling numbers forced the crown to take steps to reconquer the Americas from an ever more powerful and semi-autonomous encomendero nobility. -Natives were required to perform a fixed amount of labor. What was the name of the man who spoke out against the encomienda system? Writing about the Black Legend and the conquest of the Americas, 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. ThoughtCo. 23 Feb. 2023
