Encomienda

From Hispanopedia
Christian encomendero of Indians of this Kingdom, c. 1600. After a drawing by Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala.

The Encomienda (from Latin: commendo, "to entrust"), in medieval Europe, was the relationship of personal dependence between two free men, expressed in an exchange of services, in which the strong gave protection to the weak in exchange for loyalty and the performance of certain services.[1] This would turn into the submission of the weak to his feudal lord, so that he became his vassal.[2]

The Encomienda was first established in Spain during the Reconquista. It was later introduced during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and in the Philippines as a Spanish labor system that compensated the conquistadors with part of the labor of certain groups of conquered people, and for that reason it was considered a type of tax. The workers were to receive a wage and protection from the conquistadors for whom they worked, and they were considered vassals of the Spanish Monarchy.

The system consisted of the monopoly over the temporary labor (corvée) of certain groups of Indigenous people, held in perpetuity by the holder, called the encomendero, and by his descendants. However, from the New Laws of 1542 onward, encomiendas expired upon the death of the encomendero and were replaced by the Repartimiento.[3][4] From the mid-16th century, with the monetization of the Indigenous tribute, the situation of the natives in America became equivalent to that of the pecheros in Spain.[5]

With the removal of Christopher Columbus in 1500, the Spanish Crown replaced him with Francisco de Bobadilla.[6] Bobadilla was succeeded by a royal Governor, Fray Nicolás de Ovando, who established the formal encomienda system.[7] In many cases, the natives were compelled to perform forced labor and were subjected to extreme punishment and death if they resisted.[8] However, Queen Isabella I of Castile prohibited the enslavement of the native population and considered the Indigenous people "free vassals of the crown".[9] Various versions of the Laws of the Indies from 1512 onward attempted to regulate the interactions between the settlers and the natives. Both the natives and the Spaniards turned to the Reales Audiencias to seek redress within the encomienda system.

The Encomiendas generally governed the free vassals of the Crown through the existing community hierarchies, and the Indigenous people remained in their settlements with their families. There were, however, cases that involved the geographic displacement of Indigenous people and the breakup of communities.[10]

The Encomienda in the European Middle Ages

In Castile and Aragon during the Middle Ages, encomiendas were territories, real estate, rents or benefices belonging to a military order. Each was headed by a professed knight, called a commander (comendador), who was appointed by the master of one of the many orders of chivalry or religious orders that existed from the beginning of the Spanish Middle Ages. Each commander had under his protection and defense the "encomienda" he had received, in return for services, such as the rents of the lands. The orders with the largest territorial holdings were those of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcántara in Castile, that of Montesa in Aragon, and the Order of Saint John in both kingdoms.[2]

The wars against the Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula caused these orders to become true administrative districts in the medium and long term. During the reconquest of Spanish territory, the encomienda played a very important role, since many of the Christian warriors needed a system of social organization with which to manage and repopulate the territories they won after their victories.[11]

In 1492, the year in which unconverted Jews and Muslims were finally expelled from present-day Spain, Columbus also arrived in America. As a result, an evolution of the same legal structure ended up being implemented in America.

The Encomienda in the Church

Encomienda is also the term for the donation of a vacant ecclesiastical entity to an ecclesiastic called a commendator, who was to look after it until the post was officially filled.

The Encomienda in America

Kingsborough Codex: an encomendero mistreats an Indian. Copy by the Italian Agostino Aglio, 1825–1826, for Lord Kingsborough.

Origin

When Columbus arrived in Hispaniola, he discovered gold deposits. To extract the gold, he created a tax on the native population: every Indigenous person over 14 years of age had to hand him a Flemish hawk's bell full of gold every three months, and those who did not live near the mines had to hand over an arroba of cotton. According to the work Historia del Almirante, written by his son Hernando Colón, Christopher Columbus always conquered territories in the name of the Catholic Monarchs. However, with the arrival of the investigating judge Francisco de Bobadilla in 1500, Columbus was arrested. Francisco exploited the settlers' grievances against Columbus and offered them Indians in encomienda and lands in exchange for their support against the Admiral. Francisco de Bobadilla appointed himself governor and took possession of Columbus's palace and properties in Santo Domingo. Bobadilla was later replaced by Nicolás de Ovando. Columbus had established an order under which half of all the gold the settlers obtained was to be handed over to the Crown, but no one obeyed that order until Ovando lowered the amount to one fifth.

In 1508, Nicolás de Ovando wrote to the Crown urging instructions on three points: that the conversion of the Indians to Christianity be carried out without subjecting them to any force; that the Indians, instead of living in a dispersed and primitive manner, "gather in towns, as are the people who live in our kingdoms"; and that interracial marriages be encouraged, with a view to quicker civilization and Christianization.[11] Repartimientos had been institutionalized in America by a Royal Provision of December 20, 1503. From 1505 onward, however, Nicolás de Ovando, who was encomendero mayor of the Order of Alcántara, stopped distributing Indians and began to entrust them in encomienda. In theory, the encomienda regulated the reciprocal relations between the encomendero and the encomendado, and for that reason it became established in the New World.[12]

To avoid a return to the bad practices and medieval systems abolished in 1509, the Crown decreed that the encomienda could not be considered perpetual and that Indians could only be entrusted for a maximum period of two years.[11]

Indigenous tribute in kind could consist of metals, clothing, or foods such as maize, wheat, fish or hens. It was collected by the cacique of the Indigenous community, who was responsible for taking it to the encomendero. The encomendero was in contact with the encomienda, but he resided in the city, the nerve center of the Spanish colonial system.

The encomienda provided a way to reward those Spaniards who had distinguished themselves by their services and to ensure the establishment of a Spanish population in the newly discovered and conquered lands.

The encomienda also served as a center of acculturation and of compulsory evangelization. The encomenderos regrouped the Indigenous people in towns called "Doctrinas", where they had to work and receive instruction in Christian doctrine, generally from religious belonging to the regular Orders. The Indigenous people also had to provide for the upkeep of the religious.

The Encomienda in America and the Philippines was established as a right granted by the King (from 1523) in favor of a Spanish subject. The Spaniard who held the right (the Encomendero) received the Encomienda so that he could collect the tributes that the Indigenous people had to pay to the crown as its subjects. These tributes were paid in labor or in kind, and later in money. In return, the Encomendero had to look after the spiritual and material well-being of the Indigenous people, ensuring their sustenance and protection as well as their Christian instruction (evangelization). However, some encomenderos committed abuses, and the system sometimes degenerated into forms of forced or unfree labor, because in many cases payment of the tribute in kind was replaced by labor for the encomendero.

The encomiendas were not distributed evenly among the Spaniards. In 1514, more than half of the Spaniards had no Indigenous people in their charge, while 11% of those who did had received 44% of them.

Encomiendas and Encomenderos

Legislation against abuses

The Encomienda gave rise to some episodes of abuse and violence, which were notably denounced by figures such as Fray Antonio de Montesinos and Fray Bartolomé de las Casas. Fray Matías de Paz reflected on the matter from a Christian point of view, while the jurist López de Palaci y Rubios contributed a legal point of view. Las Casas would come to be heard by Charles I and Philip II. It was precisely the exaggerated accounts of Bartolomé de las Casas that served most as a basis for the Black Legend. Even today, they have given rise to the false idea that these abuses were widespread across the entire continent, affecting millions of Indigenous people, without any control for centuries.

In this regard, the Encomienda would in reality have been a typical feudal institution for the hegemonic relations of serfdom during the Ancien Régime, with obligations on both sides. The Encomendero had to provide services to the Indian, above all protection of his living needs, in exchange for the Indian owing him his labor. If the encomendero failed to comply, he would face serious consequences before the Real Audiencia. This was due to the provisions of the Laws of the Indies, which recognized the rights of the Indian as a free vassal with the power to bring legal charges against his lord, being on an equal footing with the Spaniards as subjects of the Crown.

Institutions for the protection of the Indian were also developed, such as the Visitadors. They had a duty to inspect the treatment of the Indians and to verify that the Indians' condition matched the descriptions given by another visitador; because one visitador checked on another, corruption and bribery by the encomenderos were avoided. In this way they could guarantee the Indian's natural rights as a human person and verify compliance with what the legislation of the Indies established for the encomendero, which included:

  • educating the Indians in the faith (including building churches for them and acting as catechists);
  • teaching them good customs (including having at least one or two Indians, the most able, learn to read and write in order to teach the other Indians);
  • granting them rest (such as installing one hammock for each Indian);
  • paying them fair remuneration;
  • feeding them adequately (with more food to be given to those who worked in mines);
  • giving them clothing;
  • handing over plots for them to cultivate and animals to raise;
  • guaranteeing them housing (building at least four Bohíos for every 50 Indians), etc.

It was further provided that if the encomendero was not carrying out these duties, the visitador was to do so.[13]

"Some authors insist that the encomiendas and the repartimientos were forms of slavery. This work has focused solely on examining the legal regulation enacted in the Indies, and on that basis it can be stated that in no case did the Indians have the status of slaves, save in the exceptions studied. The Indians working in the encomiendas had full legal and civil capacity, could initiate legal proceedings against the holders of the encomienda, were considered free vassals, and retained their family and personal freedom. Furthermore, in the clause of her codicil the queen asked that the Indians and their property be respected, thereby recognizing them as holders of the right of property. A right that was recognized, once again, in the Laws of Burgos."

— Julia Menéndez Lada. Los derechos de los Indios Americanos en el reinado de los Reyes Católicos

The Laws of Burgos also stated that, after two years of service, Indigenous people could be considered fit to live outside the encomienda if they had already adopted the Hispanic customs of civility and Catholic ethics. The laws included further protections:

  • Pregnant Indian women were entitled to a maternity exemption from labor so as not to endanger the baby. It lasted from the fourth month of pregnancy until the child was three years old, for its upbringing.
  • No woman could be forced to work in the mines or similar places. Women were only to do the work that they and their husbands deemed suitable, although the encomendero could encourage them to take part in heavy work, provided it was of their own free will and for an agreed wage.
  • Indians under 14 years of age were prohibited from working, and those who were Orphans were to receive mandatory protection from the judges of residencia to ensure they were well treated.
  • After five months of work, all Indians were to be granted 40 days of rest, and they also had the right to a daily rest period similar to the Spanish siesta.
  • Indians had the right to choose the trade they wished, and those who were already apprentices in a guild were exempted from other labor.
  • Spaniards could not deprive them of their goods and belongings for any reason, or it would constitute the crime of theft.[13]

"There is no other social legislation in the world similar to that which was issued in defense of the Indian as a worker, which begins with the Laws of Burgos and extends above all throughout the 16th century"

— Vicente D. Sierra

The Laws of Burgos

Main article: Laws of Burgos

In 1512, Fray Montesinos's denunciations of some abuses in these first encomiendas prompted the immediate promulgation of the Laws of Burgos that same year; they were expanded a year later. The laws developed and explicitly defined the labor system in the encomiendas, setting out the rights and guarantees of the Indians and the encomenderos' obligations of fair treatment. These obligations covered work, equitable remuneration and the evangelization of the encomendados, so that the Indians would be introduced into correct Christian doctrine and into vida en policía (civil life). However, following the secularization of the Spanish Empire, these obligations were neglected and the encomienda turned into a system of forced labor for the original peoples in favor of the encomenderos.[14]

On December 9, 1518, this law was extended. It established that only those Indians who lacked sufficient means to earn a living could be entrusted, and that they were to leave the encomienda as soon as they were able to fend for themselves.[11] The laws went so far as to require that the Indians be taught to read and write. They also called on the encomendero to hold values such as a father's love, so as to become a magnanimous and paternalistic master who would care for his Indian servants.

This duty of paternalism of the lords toward their Indian vassals was implicit in the Colonial pact that governed political and social life. Compliance with these paternalistic aspects was therefore invoked in the courts and in family dynamics, since it constituted the legitimacy of the exercise of authority by the King of Spain, his governors, the priests, the nobility, the local Indian authorities (república de indios) and, evidently, the encomenderos. For this reason, if there were irregularities, the Indians had every right to file complaints before the judges of the Real Audiencia.[15]

The New Laws

In 1527 a new law determined that the creation of any new encomienda must necessarily have the approval of religious. They bore the responsibility of judging whether an encomienda could help a particular group of Indians to develop, or whether it would be counterproductive.

In 1542, after 50 years of the encomienda's existence, Charles I considered that the Indians had attained sufficient social development for all of them to be considered subjects of the Crown like the rest of the Spaniards. For this reason, the New Laws were created in 1542, which stipulated that:[11]

  • No new encomiendas would be assigned, and existing ones would necessarily die with their holders.
  • Encomiendas held by members of the clergy, by public officials, or by persons without a title of conquest were abolished.
  • The amount of the tributes that the encomendados had to pay was considerably limited.
  • There was to be no cause or reason whatsoever for making slaves; existing Indian slaves were to be set free unless full right to keep them in that state was shown.

Unlike what had happened with the earlier laws, the new viceroys arrived in America with express orders that these laws be enforced. This led to a war in Peru between the encomenderos and those loyal to the king in 1544, led by Gonzalo Pizarro, and another in 1553 led by Francisco Hernández Gijón. Meanwhile, in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, Viceroy Luis de Velasco y Ruiz de Alarcón freed 15,000 Indigenous people. The laws also gave rise to a conspiracy led by Hernán Cortés's son, Martín Cortés, Marquis of the Valley, and his brother, which ended in their perpetual banishment from the Indies.

On February 22, 1549, a royal cédula was issued that prohibited the encomenderos from using the exploitation of Indigenous labor as part of the tribute. It also dealt with the problem of the restitution of goods and properties that the Spaniards had to make to the Indians. The Spanish inhabitants of the colonies considered the encomienda a kind of reward they deserved to receive. Against this royal policy, they promptly launched a movement, even before these laws were promulgated, to demand the revocation or modification of the ordinances.[16]

The New Laws could not be fully applied. In Peru, they were used as an excuse for a serious revolt led by Gonzalo Pizarro. This, together with pressure from several power groups, led Charles I to repeal article 30, which had eliminated the hereditary character of the encomiendas. As a result, the encomienda survived in some areas until 1791. In the second half of the 16th century, the Viceroy of Peru Francisco de Toledo discussed the suppression of the right of inheritance of encomiendas with Philip II, but the matter was not resolved.

Decline in America

The kings again attempted to abolish the institution from 1696 onward, issuing cédulas in 1720, 1735, 1776, 1777 and 1801 that succeeded in suppressing encomiendas in several American regions.[17] The encomienda entered into crisis from the end of the 16th century. Two causes were the complaints about the mistreatment of Indigenous people by some encomenderos and the onset of the so-called demographic catastrophe of the Indigenous population. In some places, such as Yucatán, the Valle del Cauca and Chile, it managed to survive into the 18th century, although by then this relationship of subjugation was in decline. The encomienda was replaced by the repartimiento of Indians, peonage, wage labor and African slavery.

By the period from 1680 to 1750, the encomenderos no longer lived solely from the Indians. They also lived from a multitude of commercial activities, above all agricultural ones, and from government posts. This made the possession of encomiendas increasingly irrelevant economically. Encomiendas had more value as an expression of power based on status and social honor. In that environment, social relations depended mostly on pacts and exchanges of favors, through networks among people known to one another in the local community, which gave access to posts within the Cabildo.[15]

By the 1750s, the encomiendas had been extinguished in the Viceroyalty of New Granada.[15] In Chile, Ambrosio O'Higgins abolished the encomiendas by an edict of February 9, 1789, when they were already simply a declining institution. This edict was ratified by Charles IV in 1791, the date on which their definitive abolition in the Captaincy General of Chile took effect. Finally, on May 17, 1803, Charles IV decreed a royal cédula that ordered the following: «I have likewise resolved to order that all encomiendas subsisting in Paraguay, contrary to my royal cédulas already executed in most of my dominions of America, be immediately incorporated into my royal crown. The holders are not to be admitted any recourse that might hinder their definitive reversion, since they can have no just reason for it, and this my sovereign resolution extends to the former mitayos.» With this, the encomiendas came to a permanent end throughout the Spanish Empire.[17]

The institution of the encomienda was based heavily on the tribal affiliation of the individual subject to it, and it was a tributary pact; in fact, the caciques, curacas or other tribal chiefs acted as intermediaries and organizers of the service. Mestizos, for example, were exempted from the encomienda by law. This led many natives to deliberately seek to dilute their ethnic or tribal identity and that of their descendants, trying to marry individuals of a different ethnicity, especially Spaniards (newly arrived ones or criollos). In this way, the encomienda severely weakened the ethnicity and tribal identification of the Amerindians, and this in turn reduced the number of potential encomendados. In short, it was factors such as mestizaje and the progressive decline of the native population that ended up transforming the encomienda system into one of tenancy (inquilinaje) or latifundism in Colonial America.

Moreover, in economic terms, the possession of encomiendas became a marginal aspect of the feudal lords' economic advancement. Their many governmental, commercial and agricultural activities meant that they did not live solely from their Indians and that the encomienda was not essential to them. This indicates that the encomienda lasted as long as it did because it allowed an expression of power: status, honor, social recognition and the exchange of mutual favors, which had a basis beyond the material. It granted a privilege of prestige within a local community where a client relationship full of compadrazgos was practiced.[15]

References

  1. ↑ Julio Valdeón Baruque (2002). "Encomienda (Edad Media)". Diccionario Espasa. Historia de España y América (in español). Madrid: Espasa Calpe. p. 434. ISBN 84-670-0316-2.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chris Cook (1993). Diccionario de términos históricos (in español). Madrid: Ediciones del Prado. p. 187. ISBN 84-7838-392-1.
  3. ↑ James Lockhart and Stuart Schwartz, Early Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press. Page 138: «The encomienda in its early heyday granted a lifetime monopoly on the utilization of temporary Indian labor in a given area to one Spaniard, the encomendero. The succeeding repartimiento [...]»
  4. ↑ Silvio Zavala (1984). "1. Evolución general". El servicio personal de los indios en la Nueva España: 1521-1550 (in español). El Colegio de México - El Colegio Nacional (Mexico). p. 31. ISBN 968-12-0253-8. Retrieved 2022-08-13. las Leyes Nuevas dadas en Barcelona el 20 de noviembre de 1542 […] abolieron la facultad de proveer nuevas encomiendas en las Indias, y mandaron incorporar en la Corona las existentes a la muerte de sus poseedores
  5. ↑ Francisco Colom González (December 2020). "Patrimonial Liberalism: A Weberian Approach to Early Latin American State-Making". FIAR: Forum for Inter-American Research. 13 (3). Bielefeld University: International Association of Inter-American Studies (IAS): 77. ISSN 1867-1519. Retrieved 2022-08-13. By the mid-16th century the Indian tribute was monetized, formally putting the relationship between the natives and the encomienda holders on an equal footing with the pecheros (peasant tributaries) from Castile and their feudal lords
  6. ↑ Noble, David Cook. "Nicolás de Ovando" in Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture, vol.4, p. 254. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons 1996.
  7. ↑ Ida Altman, et al., The Early History of Greater Mexico, Pearson, 2003, p. 47
  8. ↑ Rodriguez, Junius P. (2007). Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Vol. 1. p. 184. ISBN 978-0-313-33272-2. Archived from the original on 2016-09-19. Retrieved 2016-03-27.
  9. ↑ Ida Altman, et al., The Early History of Greater Mexico, Pearson, 2003, 143
  10. ↑ Charles Gibson, The Aztecs Under Spanish Rule, Stanford, 1964.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Sánchez Galera, Juan y José María (2012). Vamos a Contar Mentiras (in español). Edaf. ISBN 9788441432116.
  12. ↑ Mira Caballos, Esteban: "Los orígenes de los repartimientos y las encomiendas indianas: algunas reflexiones", en Las Antillas Mayores. Madrid, Iberoamericana, 2000, pp. 13-30
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 LOS DERECHOS DE LOS INDIOS AMERICANOS EN EL REINADO DE LOS REYES CATÓLICOS, Julia Menéndez Lada
  14. ↑ García Icazbalceta, Joaquín "Colección de documentos para la historia de México" "Carta del licenciado Francisco Ceynos, oidor de la audiencia de México, al emperador." 22 de junio de 1532 text online Cervantes Virtual
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Cuevas Arenas, Héctor; Castañeda Morales, Andrés Felipe; Cuevas Arenas, Héctor; Castañeda Morales, Andrés Felipe (2019-12). "Indios y encomenderos: acercamientos a la encomienda desde la cultura política y el pacto tributario. Valle del río Cauca, 1680-1750". HiSTOReLo. Revista de Historia Regional y Local (in español). 11 (22): 165–197. doi:10.15446/historelo.v11n22.72344. ISSN 2145-132X. Retrieved 2023-08-20. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ↑ Someda, Hidefuji (1981-12-01). "Fray Bartolomé De Las Casas y el problema de la perpetuidad de la encomienda en el Perú". Histórica (in español). 5 (2): 263–294. doi:10.18800/historica.198102.006. ISSN 2223-375X. Retrieved 2023-12-29.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "El indio, en el régimen español / Carlos Eguia / Temas españoles 224 / Madrid 1956". www.filosofia.org (in español). Retrieved 2023-08-28.

See also

Bibliography

  • García de Valdeavellano, Luis (1992). Curso de historia de las Instituciones españolas (in español) (4th ed.). Madrid: Alianza. ISBN 9788420680538.
  • Arranz Márquez, Luis A. (1991). Arranz Márquez (ed.). Repartimientos y encomiendas en la Isla Española (El Repartimiento de Alburquerque de 1514) (in español). Madrid. ISBN 9788460402381.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Mira Caballos, Esteban: El indio antillano: repartimiento, encomienda y esclavitud (1492-1542). Seville: Muñoz Moya editor, 1997. ISBN 8480100516
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  • Ribeiro, Fernando Victor Aguiar. "Práticas Jurídicas nas Fronteiras da América Hispânica: As Dinâmicas dos Poderes Locais na Construção de um Modelo de Encomienda no Paraguai em Meados do Século XVII." Tempo 26.2 (2020): 268-91.
  • Salinas, María Laura. "Las Encomiendas Paraguayas y Rioplatenses: Categorías y Formas Laborales según las Fuentes del Siglo XVII y XVIII." Naveg@merica 25 (2020): 1-28.
  • Segovia, Armando González. "Encomiendas en el Llano de Venezuela: Proceso Colonial de los Siglos XVI y XVII." Boletín Americanista 74 (2017): 139-62.
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