By Julie Etra

Encomendar = Entrust

Spanish Origin
This legal system of forced labor originated in medieval Spain after the Reconquista in 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella wrested control over Andalus (also known as Andalucia, a region of southern Spain). The system was established to extract tribute from the defeated Moors (originally from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco), many of whom were expelled to North Africa—an estimated three million people. Some returned and converted to Catholicism, becoming known as Moriscos. The system rewarded soldiers and financiers who had contributed to Spain’s conquests, including those of the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa.

Exportation to the New World and the Philippines
The encomienda system was first introduced to the newly conquered Hispaniola (present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti) in 1502 and later to Mexico and the Philippines, where it took on slight regional variations. In is 2009 study The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521-1555, Robert Himmerich y Valencia, Associate Professor of History at the University of New Mexico provides an excellent description of the encomienda: “a grant of “a grant of the Indians of a prescribed indigenous polity, who were to provide the grantee (the encomendero) tribute in the form of commodities and service in return for protection and religious instruction.”

New Spain needed free labor for its silver mines and religious conversion efforts. Officially approved by the Spanish Crown in 1503, the system expanded southward to Spanish colonies in Central and South America and throughout the Caribbean. Initially, the right to encomienda was granted to an adelantado or encomendero, a conquistador awarded the opportunity to conquer new territories on behalf of the Spanish Crown. This system was later extended to adventurers, colonizers, and even municipalities. It was essentially slavery under a different name—a legal arrangement that did not allocate land or other physical resources, such as mines or haciendas, which came later. The only distinction from outright slavery was that the indigenous workers could not be sold or inherited. The adelantado retained 80% of acquired wealth, while the Crown received the remaining 20%.

Structure
There were 506 encomienda grants in Mexico. Though granted for life, they were not inheritable, and most reverted to the Crown upon the encomendero’s death, with small provisions made for surviving family members. The size of the population tied to a particular encomienda varied, averaging around 2,000 family units, though these units could differ in composition. Some encomiendas were much larger—for example, Hernán Cortés’s encomienda included over 23,000 family units.

Smaller encomiendas were adequate for property improvements and cultivation. They also allowed a settler to build a home, feed his family, and maintain a small entourage of salaried personal followers (paniaguados) to protect his holdings from rebellious native groups and marauding Europeans. Additionally, encomenderos were responsible for paying the parish priest.

Decline
The system was short-lived, with major reforms attempted in 1573. It was perceived as abusive and counterproductive, especially as the population of New Spain had declined drastically—from approximately 22 million in 1500 to just 3 million by 1550 due to disease and forced labor fatalities. Additionally, there were not enough licenses available to meet demand, and there were too few indigenous workers left to sustain the system. As a result, the Spanish Crown decided to place control of the conquered population directly under royal authority instead of under the powerful encomenderos. The system was officially abolished on September 17, 1721, when the issuance of new encomiendas in all of Spain’s colonies was prohibited. However, remnants of the system persisted in parts of Mexico until the early 18th century and lingered in the Yucatán Peninsula until the 1780s.

Repartimiento
The repartimiento system replaced encomienda, shifting labor control from private individuals to the Spanish colonial government. Under this system, Spanish colonists and municipalities were granted the right to extract forced but low-paid labor from local communities in conquered territories. Designed to replace the inefficient encomienda system, repartimiento was eventually limited to crucial industries such as food and textile production and precious metal mining.

For further reading, see Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken’s article on slavery in Mexico on page 8.