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Updated: June 26, 2025
He now added to his appointments the property and government of the little island of Mona during life, and assigned him a repartimiento of two hundred Indians, with the superintendence of the mines which might be discovered in Cuba; an office which proved very lucrative.
In common with everyone else, he accepted a repartimiento that is to say, a supply of Indian labourers and was undoubtedly on the road to riches when, little by little, the inhumanity of slave-owning became clear to him. To one of his enthusiastic temperament no half measures were possible.
Before this new arrangement, every Spaniard who possessed a repartimiento or allotment of lands and Indians, used to receive from the curaca or cacique of his district such tribute as he was able or willing to pay, and many of the Spaniards often exacted larger sums from their Indians than they were well able to afford, frequently plundering them of their hard-earned property with lawless violence.
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.
The repartimiento had lately been put in force by the corregidores with even more than the usual injustice.
The system goes back to the days when the spiritual, moral, and material welfare of the Indians was entrusted in encomienda to the lords of the repartimiento or allotted territory. Huadquiña once belonged to the Jesuits. They planted the first sugar cane and established the mill.
In 1497, letters patent were issued from the Sovereigns to the admiral, authorizing him to grant repartimientos of the lands in the Indies to the Spaniards. It is noticeable that in this document there is no mention of Indians, so that they had not come to form portion of a repartimiento at this period.
The repartimiento was another protective law, which also became a means of oppression. Under it the district officials were required to supply all things needed by the Indians, there being, when the law was passed, no peddlers or travelling dealers.
From San Miguel Carvajal went to Truxillo, collecting every where on his route all the soldiers, horses, arms, and money he could find. Carvajal had resolved to have put one Melchior Verdugo to death, who dwelt in Truxillo; but as Verdugo got intimation of this intention, he fled to the province of Caxamarca, where his repartimiento of Indians was situated.
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