Establishment of The Encomienda
In 1503 the crown began to legally grant encomiendas to soldiers, conquistadors and officials. The system of encomiendas was aided by the Crown's organizing the indigenous into small harbors known as reducciones, in response to the declining populations. Each reducción had a Native chief responsible for keeping track of the laborers in his community. The encomienda system did not grant people land, but it indirectly aided in the settlers' acquisition of land. Encomenderos became familiar with Native lands; they were positioned to take control of land belonging to the Natives under their trusteeship through legal or extralegal means, when the opportunity arose. As initially defined, the encomendero and his heir were only supposed to benefit from the grant for two generations; however, this was often not the case, especially if the heir rendered some service to the crown. The encomienda system did eventually come to a legal end in 1720, when the crown made a new attempt at eradicating the institution. The encomenderos were then required to pay remaining encomienda labourers for their work.
The encomiendas became very corrupt and harsh. In the neighborhood of La Conception, north of Santo Domingo, the adelantado of Santiago heard rumors of a 15,000 man army planning to stage a rebellion. Upon hearing this, the Adelantado captured the Caciques involved and had most of them hanged. Later on, a chieftain named Guarionex laid havoc to the countryside before an Indian-Spanish army of about 3,090 routed the Ciguana forces under his leadership. It is safe to say that although expecting Spanish protection from warring tribes, the islanders sought to join the Spanish forces and, through sheer exasperation, helped the Spaniards deal with the ignorances to the surrounding environment.
Initially, the encomendado was supposed to be returned to the crown after two generations, however this was frequently overlooked. In 1574, the Viceroy of Peru Diego Lopez de Velasco investigated the encomiendas and concluded that there were 32,000 Spanish families in the New World, 4,000 of which had encomiendas. There were 1,500,000 natives paying tribute, and 5 million "civilized" natives.
The phrase "sin indios no hay Indias" (without Indians, there are no Indies – i.e. America), popular in America especially in the 16th century, emphasizes the economic importance and appeal of this indentured labor, even above that of precious metals or other natural resources. Land awardees customarily complained about how "worthless" territory was, unless it also comprised a population of encomendados.
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