Encomienda System

• Encomienda System

  -          had its roots in Spain of the Reconquista, as a policy of rewarding meritorious crown servants in the colonies, attempted to reconcile labor needs with Indian justice
• Encomienda System

  -          began in the American colonies soon after permanent Spanish settlement, was scarcely distinguishable at that time from repartimiento.
• Encomienda System

  repartimiento remained an irregular system, subject to great variation according to local circumstance, the encomienda, as formally established under Governor Ovando, always took the form that was to characterize it throughout Spain's
• Encomienda in the Philippines

  -          maintained until the middle of the seventeenth century.

  -          situation remained the same save that there was a slightly higher proportion of royal than private grants during the latter half of the century.
• Encomienda in the Philippines

  -          a great extent the resilience of encomienda in the Philippines was due to the frontier nature of the colony.

  -          Philippines was a tenuous foothold in the East - in the face of Dutch, English, Muslim, Malay and Chinese assaults, successive Spanish kings allowed encomienda to survive as valuable and inexpensive tools of Iberian imperialism.
• Encomienda in the Philippines

  -          special geographic and economic characteristics of the colony ensured that encomenderos in the Philippines would never assume the stature and political power that they had in the Americas.

  -          most important system in the Spanish Philippines for the ordering of Filipino society and labor.
• Encomienda in the Philippines

  -          Encomenderos were, in most islands outside of Luzon, the cutting edge of Spanish expansion, and the institution was an important source both of crown revenues and of information concerning native peoples.

  -          Established as early as 1572, and did not begin to decline for another century, it remains one of the few constant sources of data for early Philippine colonial history.
• Abuses of Encomienda

  -          made by the Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi in 1572.

  -          Legazpi was empowered at that time to recommend all the islands in encomienda to meritorious grantees -mainly military officer - resenting one-third of all grants to the crown.
• Abuses of Encomienda

  -          In 1573, Adelantados were given the right to choose an encomienda near each Spanish settlement.

  -          This was a right never enjoyed by Legazpi, who died in 1572 but subsequent Governors-General commonly abused their rights.
• Abuses of Encomienda

  -          inflicted considerable hardship on the native population.

  -          Tribute payments, which was often the root cause for abuses, could take the form of gold, pearls, wax, cotton cloth or mantas (especially in ilocos), occasionally salt, agricultural products and labor.
• Abuses of Encomienda

  -          Among Filipino peoples whose economic activities were typically limited to fulfilling immediate needs, the necessity to comply with the often limitless wants of the encomendero and his retainers was onerous

  -          To some extent, this was inevitable, regardless of the intentions of the encomendero.
• Abuses of Encomienda

  -          Even on crown grants, abuses of native peoples were sometimes rife.

  -          a royal tax collector in llocos province late in the sixteenth century, Alferez Francisco Salgado in 1597 functioning of the encomienda in the Philippines and the nature of interactions between Spaniards and Filipinos.
• The Salgado Document

  -          organized into a series of four charges.

  -          followed by testimonies of Filipinos, variations on the basic charge, and later by the restitution charged upon Salgado
• The Salgado Document

  ·         First Charge

  -          ordered to pay restitution to ten villages, between three hundred to two thousand chickens to each.
• The Salgado Document

  ·         Second Charge

  -          pay back these tributes to each principal.
• The Salgado Document

  ·         Third Charge

  -          pay of forty pesos and six tomines of coarse gold to each porter on the journey to Currimao, and a rice ration for each day. Rice taken from villages under improper assessments was to be returned or redeemed in gold or silver.
• The Salgado Document

  ·         Fourth Charge

  -          fined one hundred pesos of coarse gold "for aid for the Chamber of Your Majesty, and expenses of the Court of justice and in the costs of this trial.”