encomienda

Updated: June 1, 2025

Under the first head may be mentioned the mita, or forced labor in mines, farms, and factories, and the repartimiento, or encomienda, which was an allotment to Spaniards of territory including the native inhabitants as peons or vassals.

John Holladay Latané - The United States and Latin America

As terms of peace Columbus required annual tribute in gold so great that no amount of labor in washing the sands could furnish it. As a commutation of tribute and as a means of promoting the conversion of the Indians there was soon inaugurated the encomienda system which afterward spread throughout Spanish America.

Ulrich Bonnell Phillips - American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime

In this affair twelve or fifteen days were spent in the going, the work, and the return, and for this he claims more remuneration than if he had pacified the states of Flandes; and he is not even contented with the governor having given him an excellent encomienda in the vicinity of this city, besides another good one which he possesses in Pangasinan.

- The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 13 of 55 : 1604-1605 : Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of The Catholic Missions, As Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century

For he dares not ask to have investigations made in the Audiencia, nor should an opinion be given in it as your Majesty orders by the royal decrees; for it is not known in the royal Council how little he did, that it was not a service of such importance as to demand more reward than what he held in the first encomienda.

- The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 13 of 55 : 1604-1605 : Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of The Catholic Missions, As Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century

"It was very pleasing to find that Cortes did not forget his old friends the Tlascalans, but dwelt on their services, and procured from the Emperor an order that they should not be given encomienda to His Majesty, or to any other person."

Cyrus Townsend Brady - South American Fights and Fighters: And Other Tales of Adventure

However, kind words, kind looks, and the present of that inestimable treasure a knife, brought him to reason; and he told Amyas that he belonged to a Spaniard who had an "encomienda" of Indians some fifteen miles to the south-west; that he had fled from his master, and lived by hunting for some months past; and having seen the ship where she lay moored, and boarded her in hope of plunder, had been surprised therein by the Spaniards, and forced by threats to go with them as a guide in their search for the English.

Charles Kingsley - Westward Ho!, or, the voyages and adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the county of Devon, in the reign of her most glorious majesty Queen Elizabeth

The outcome was that while the settling of the encomienda problem was indefinitely postponed, authorization was promptly given for a supply of bozal negroes. The crown here had an opportunity to get large revenues, of which it was in much need, by letting the slave trade under contract or by levying taxes upon it.

Ulrich Bonnell Phillips - American Negro Slavery: A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime

There was another crocodile, smaller than this one, which inflicted loss on the household of a reputable Spaniard of Manila; and this man came therefore to our house to entreat that Ours would provide him with a father who would make his Indians Christians. The affair occurred thus: This Spaniard was in his encomienda, where his house stood on the shore of a river much infested by these beasts.

- The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 13 of 55 : 1604-1605 : Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of The Catholic Missions, As Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century

From them the names of the deceased and of those who have changed their residence are erased, and the names of those who have grown up, and of those who have recently moved into the encomienda, are added. When any shortage is perceived in the accounts, a new count is requested and made.

Antonio de Morga - History of the Philippine Islands