Encomienda system of forced labor

In 1503 the Spanish crown, through instructions from Queen Isabella to the governor of Hispaniola, Nicolas de Ovando, formalized a system called the encomienda. A Spanish colonist, the encomendero, was "entrusted" with a group of Indigenous people, from whom he could demand labor and tribute in gold, food or goods. In return he was supposed to protect them and teach them Christianity. In practice it was forced labor: Taino people on Hispaniola were made to mine gold and grow food for colonists, and the system spread to Cuba, Puerto Rico and then Mexico and Peru after their conquest.¹²

The encomienda adapted a medieval Spanish practice from the Reconquista, when the crown rewarded conquerors with rights over conquered lands and people. On Hispaniola, overwork, violence, the disruption of farming and especially new diseases devastated the Taino. Estimates of the island's 1492 population vary from tens of thousands to over a million, and a 1514 count found only about 26,000 Taino left in Spanish allocations.²⁴

The abuses sparked the first great debate on colonial ethics. In 1511 the Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos denounced the colonists from the pulpit, leading to the Laws of Burgos in 1512, which regulated but kept the system. Bartolome de las Casas, a former encomendero turned critic, pressed for the New Laws of 1542, which banned new grants. Encomenderos rebelled in Peru, and the system faded slowly, replaced by other forms of coerced labor such as the repartimiento and the Andean mita.³⁵¹