Encomienda

Lencomienda was a system applied by the Spanish at the time of the conquest of the New World, and applied in all the Spanish colonial empire to economic ends, soldier and of evangelization. It was the regrouping on a territory of thousands of Indiens which one obliged to work without remuneration in mines, fields. They were under the orders of the " Encomendero" , it was Spanish with whom Crowns it of Spain had entrusted a ground of which it can enjoy but which does not belong to him.

The Indians in so far as it was possible for them sought to flee the mines and fields.
Les deplorable work conditions and the ill treatment made to the Indians was a subject of controversy and criticisms even among the Spaniards. One sees of it an example in particular with the Controverse of Valladolid started by Dominican the Bartolomé de Las Put.

As of the first times of the colonization of Santo Domingo, the Spaniards transposérent a medieval system, the encomienda (word which means order). Natives were divided in the properties of a colonist according to the properties of the Servage.

The research of gold required an important labor for the Orpaillage.
From 1495, the fact of imposing a noble metal tribute on the Arawak, gave a legal base to the requirements of colonization. The natives not having gold had to practice gold washing and the encomienda seemed a means of obliging them there.

The first distributions took place in the absence of Christophe Colomb, which accepted the principle in 1498 of it. The Crown ratified the irrefutable fact in 1503: the colonists imposérent their choice; the first recipients not reduced the Indians to slavery, leaves the blacks, but to the forced labor.

The phenomenon spread at the XVIIe century and diverted with its profit a good part of the population which was devoted to the mixed-farming. The cultures, especially of manioc, were distributed on small fields around the villages and exigaient a constant care. The Spaniards did not appreciate the manioc and thus décidérent to import Europe of the food products (wine, corn, animals).
De more, it released on the ground of Santo Domingo of the cattle, in particular of the sheep, which proliferated and devastated the local mixed-farming. One thus witnessed a decline of the food crops. A sharp decline of the population of Arawaks followed.

See too

  • Fazenda
  • Hacienda
  • Synonymous with Encomienda: repartimiento (distribution of the territories and Amerindians between colonists)

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