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Repartimiento
by Daron Lusk
The repartimiento de indios refers to the forced labor of indigenous people in the Spanish colonial system.
These people, Natives, were allocated to the encomenderos, the owners of the encomiendas. The actual land
given to deserving subjects by the Spanish Crown are the encomiendas while the distribution of the labor
force, the Indians, is referred to as the repartimiento. These two terms are used interchangeably until the
passing of the New Laws in 1542. After the New Laws were passed the repartimiento referred to the
allocation of the labor force while the tributes paid by the labor force is referred to as the encomienda. While
this gets confusing when researching the topic, it becomes more obvious once the New Laws were passed.
In order to understand the difference between the encomienda and the repartimiento systems, this paper will
give an overall background of the development of the encomienda. It will then detail how the two systems
differed and what effect this difference had on not only the Indian labor force but also the Crown itself.
Repartimiento is defined as the process of distribution of indigenous peoples to forced labor. During the early
settlement of Spanish-American colonies, the Crown, under Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of
Spain, worthy Spaniards were given tracts of land as payment for their services to their home country. Along
with the land, these "encomenderos" were allotted the Native people of the land as the labor force to work the
land.
As early as 1492, the Spanish Crown recognized the importance of working the new land that they had
settled. The harsh wilderness and unfamiliar terrain that they found in the New World was deadly to most of
the earliest settlers. Therefore, the Spanish settlers began a system of enslavement which forced the Native
Indian cultures into the role of bondsmen. The sensitive and often unruly Native population, still suffering the
wrath of European diseases into their society, quickly began to dwindle in numbers. Also, the slavery system
was expensive and the Indian population that did survive often turned to violence such as the revolt of 1494,
to resist the European pressures.
Therefore, a new system had to be established to allow the Spanish colonists to control the Indian population,
to assist in the conversion of the Native population to the Catholic Church, and to take full advantage of the
untouched silver and gold mines that filled the inlands of Latin America. The early beginnings of the
Repartimiento system can be found in the initial establishment of the encomienda system. The encomienda
system derived from the Spanish colonists need for a steady labor supply to tame and harvest the new land.
The makeup of the Europeans who first traveled to the New World were primarily thieves, ex-soldiers, and
prisoners, who came only to reduce their sentences ordered by the court. There were, however, a small group
of elites who traveled to the colonies and established themselves as leaders among the colonists.
Upon their arrival these ill-prepared people found the struggles of colonial life almost too much to bear. They
frequently faced starvation and death by disease. Their only relief in these early days came in the form of
supply vessels that were few and far between. These vessels were often filled with only spoiled foods and
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water rotten tools. The only manner of survival for these early settlers was to force the Native population to
supply them with food. Even Columbus, after the Indian revolt of 1494, placed Indians under the control of
land owners, where the Natives would work to support the colonists. He only petitioned Ferdinand and
Isabella after he had initiated the system that came to be called the encomienda system. The initial system
instituted this early was actually an adaptation of a similar Spanish method of forced labor. Eventually, Fray
Nicolas de Ovando laid the foundation for further relationships between the Spanish settlers and the Native
population regarding the use of their labor. Ovando was chosen as royal governor because of his experience
in the region of Granada, and he immediately proposed ideals to regulate the relationship between the
Spaniards and the Natives. Among these first decrees, Ovando stated, "Since it will be necessary, in order to
mine gold and to carry out the other works that we have ordered, to make use of the services of the Indians,
you will compel them to work in our service, paying them the wage which you think it is just they should
have." With these decrees, he laid out a primitive instruction base which developed into the repartimiento
system.
Ovando continued to look after the labor supply of the Indian population. Not only was the Crown interested
in forcing the Natives to help provide food but they also wanted to use the Indians' labor to extract the gold
from the nearby mines. Ovando, having had experience with the labor system of Espanola, decided to attempt
to adopt the encomienda system into New Spain to better regulate the labor system of the Indians. In a letter
written by Queen Isabella to Ovando, she clearly agrees that the Indian labor should be forced to aid the
survival of the Spanish colonies, by producing foods and fortifications, as well as the mining that the Crown
desperately desired to take part in.
Upon Isabella's approval to Ovando to incorporate the encomienda system into the Spanish colonies, she also
laid the foundation for better Spanish-Native relations in the New World. Since European conquest, the
relationship between the Natives and the Spaniards had been abusive at best. Native people were enslaved
and starved to the point that their Native populations dwindled near extinction. As the humanity of the
situation improved and Native labor was used more openly for Spaniard gains, the Indians were still
mistreated and taken advantage of. The encomienda system would regulate the relationship between the
encomenderos and the labor force that supplied their survival.
Upon Isabella's death the responsibilities of regulating the encomiendas fell to Ferdinand, whose first goal
was to make as much money from the Native labor force that they could possibly get. Ferdinand did not
necessarily care for the humane treatment of the Indians, though he did not treat them inhumanely either. He
chose, instead to decree that the Indians should remain as forced labor and not be enslaved unless they
became unruly and then they should be enslaved and most should be sold. With this he established his
manner of dealing with the Indians without taking a definite stand on the slavery issue. According to Lesley
Byrd Simpson in The Encomienda in New Spain, Ferdinand contemplated regulating the distribution of the
Native labor but decided against it because he felt that it would take away from the Indian production in the
gold mines.
The continued death and horrible conditions that the Indian population was subjected to began to be noticed.
By 1510, Domingo de Mendoza, who was the Cardinal-Archbishop of Seville and the President of the
Council of Castile, sent a company of Dominican missionaries to Espanola. Fray Pedro de Cordoba headed
this company. The missionaries could not believe what they saw when they arrived. They found the
relationship between the Indians and the colonists to be one of abuse and almost relentless cruelty to the
Natives. They immediately began to protest to the colonists and forced the encomenderos to organize their
defense before the courts in Spain. The missionaries sent one of their own, Fray Antonio de Montesinos, to
meet the courts and to argue their case for the better treatments of the Native peoples.
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The Dominicans gained a favorable decision before the courts and Montesinos later gained the approval by
Ferdinand himself to review the laws governing the labor of the colonies. Ferdinand called a committee to
further review the complaints of the missionaries. The committee constructed a set of laws designed to
regulate the treatment of the Native population but at no time did the laws seem to question the use of Native
labor to produce the wealth of the colonies. The Laws of Burgos as they were named issued thirty-five
rulings that regulated the Indians usage and the degree to which the Indians labor could be used or abused.
The Laws of Burgos passed on July 28, 1513, placed restrictions on the use of Indian labor and attempted to
control the encomenderos abuse of the sensitive Native tribes. The Laws regulated the time that Natives
could spend at doing certain work and also set specific times of rest between the work that they were forced
to carry out. Of course, the Laws upheld the Crown's own interest in keeping the Indians loyal to them. The
Laws dictated that the Indians would be removed from their homes and placed within the confines of the
Spanish towns. They would also be forced to regularly attend church services and be trained to the Catholic
religion. The Laws of Burgos are specifically laid out to convert the Indians not only religiously but also
culturally. They regulated the clothing of the Indians and even their food.
To say the least, the Dominican friars were not happy with the outcome of their efforts but they continually
pushed for further reforms of the encomienda system. During their pleas to the Spanish Crown they gained
the attention of Bartolomé de las Casas. Las Casas had lived in Espanola and Cuba for the past ten years and
had become aware of the conditions of the Indians under the repartimiento-encomienda system. He had
actually been the recipient of an encomienda and subjected his Indians to the same treatment that he now
opposed. Las Casas would quickly become and remain the leader of the movement that sought to abolish the
labor system in the New World.
Las Casas devoted the next fifty years to promoting the end of the repartimiento system. In 1515, las Casas
and Montesinos were granted permission to go to Seville and meet with the King to air their aggressions.
There las Casas met with the King but was met with indecision and was brushed aside and sent to discuss his
ideas with lesser officials. Before Ferdinand could make a decision concerning las Casas' abolition ideas he
died on January 23, 1516. Las Casas then turned to the soon-to-be King, Charles I. On his trip to visit
Charles, Las Casas met a Franciscan friar who would become one of las Casas' best advocates to abolish the
repartimiento system.
Las Casas made contact with Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros, who immediately convened a council to listen
to las Casas' proposal. The council was asked to consider the regulating of the encomienda system, the
freeing of the Indian labor force and the administering of the Native population by the Church. All of these
proposals were astounding considering the power and prestige of the encomenderos of the time. Las Casas
chose three prominent men of the Church, known as the Jeronymites, to administer his reforms but soon
found them to be disagreeable to his ideas and to his forced rule over them. He quickly lost control over the
reforms that he helped to establish and found no help from Cisneros who remained confident in Luis de
Figueroa, Bernadino de Manzanedo, and Alonso de Santo Domingo.
These three men were given the responsibility of initiating the reforms within the New World. Upon their
arrival they were to gather the inhabitants of the caciques and encomiendas and notify them of the Crowns
new policy toward Spanish-Indian relations. They were supposed to help the Spaniards and the Indians to
work together to develop a system that would work out the grievances between the two cultures. The reforms
also stated that the Indians would be free subjects of the Crown and should have been treated accordingly.
The new reforms also called for the removal of the caciques into Spanish towns and the people there should
pay a tribute to the King. The encomenderos would be compensated from this tribute for the loss of their
labor force but they could continue to work the mines on their own account if they chose.
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The Indian villages were established near the mines for easier access and all would be given access to a
church and hospital. The Indians would also be given better food supplies and their workload would be
lessened, with the women being restricted from heavy workloads. Indians within these villages would be
given clothing and better living conditions so that they would more readily accept the religious teachings that
the missionaries were adamant about continuing. Priest would be assigned to each village and direct the
religious teachings for the three hundred inhabitants of each village. However, most of these reforms were
established in vain because upon the arrival of the three Jeronymites they reported that the Indians were well
treated and that the land that they saw was not in need of any major revisions. They actually advocated for
the trade of Negro slaves to be brought to the New World to incorporate another industry for the Crown.
Once a committee was convened to report on the views of the three Jeronymites, they reported similar
findings. The committee reported that the Indians lived good lives under the encomienda system and that id
they were freed from the control of the encomenderos they would quickly revert to their "wild" ways. The
committee reported that they witnessed Christianized Natives revert to their Native religious acts only after a
short time away from their religious teachings. Natives would only work the mines when forced by the
Spanish. Because they placed no value on material possessions they did not understand the value of the gold
that they produced or the value that the income would bring to the King of Spain. Ultimately, the council
decided that las Casas misinterpreted the conditions of the Indian population and that the Natives would have
to remain under the control of the current system in order to convert them and make them useful subjects.
It was decided that slave labor should be imported to work the mines and that the Indian labor should be
converted over time to the production of the soil. Until this time agriculture had been virtually ignored
because of the overwhelming desire to supply gold to the Crown. The idea was that because the
encomenderos had no guarantee to the future of their labor force they had misused their labor to get more
production out of them. If they were reassured that they would not lose their labor, the encomenderos would
treat them with more care and attention and subject the Negro work force to the brunt of the mining work.
The Indians would then be used for the production of agriculture, which would again supplement the initial
fall in economic gain from the New World.
When Hernan Cortez made his outstanding discovery of the inhabitants of Mexico his initial decision was to
restrict the giving of encomiendas to his troops so that the Indian population would be more willing to work
and accept the Spanish rule. Cortez had seen what devastating affects that the encomienda system had on the
Native of population of Espanola and he was determined to keep the encomiendas out of Mexico. The Crown
supported him and they instructed him to keep control of his men and not to allow them to pressure the
Indians into any further hostilities. The Crown believed that Spanish settlers purposely instituted grievances
with the Indians so that the Indians would become unruly and give the Spaniards an excuse to place them
under the encomenderos rule.
Cortez held firm to his stance but the pressures of his men finally over powered him. His initial army that had
conquered the Native population insisted that they be compensated for their work in land grants and therefore
should be given an adequate labor force to work that land. Cortez, despite his initial objection to the idea,
gave in because of the threat that an unruly mass of soldiers could be for him.
The Crown decreed that Cortez would not, "not make any repartimiento or encomienda in that land, or
consent to any assignment of the Indians, but are to allow them (the Indians) to live in liberty, as our vassals
in Castile live, and if before the arrival of this letter you have given any Indians in encomienda to any
Christians, you will remove them." The Crown further instructed them to encourage the Indians to accept the
religious instruction of the Spaniards and to insist that they do so or be forced to accept the Christian faith.
They were to force the Indians to give up sacrifice and to encourage them to enter into free economic trade
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with the Spaniards as the other vassals had done, so as to bring them into more frequent contact with the
Spaniards. Most of all the Spaniards were instructed to keep all of the promises that they made the Natives
and to hold strictly to the agreements that they made.
The Crown understood the kind of men that the conquistadors were and they hoped to take steps to prevent
any mistreatment of the Indians that might cause war. Any movements that might have led to war were
prevented under severe penalty and Spaniards were allowed to freely associate with Indians on their own
accord for fear that they might insult or degrade the Natives which would result in aggressive feelings toward
the Spaniards. Also, the Crown decreed that the Spaniards were not to take any of the Native women away
from their families for their own pleasures. Again this was to restrict the possible aggression from the
Natives.
Upon receiving the letter from the Spanish government, Cortez flat out refused to obey the Crown deciding
that inhibiting his men would only cause trouble within their ranks. Cortez laid out his argument in a well
thought out and well written argument that changed the future of the Native population in Mexico. He wrote
that the Spanish Crown would sacrifice their new lands because the Indians would not be able to hold the
land if the Spaniards did not stay and control it for them. Therefore, Cortez fell back on the religious theme
that the Indians would fall back into their sinful way of life and the Crown would never gain the acceptance
of the Natives or the land that they resided on.
Cortez also claimed that the Indians were far better treated under the encomienda system that he had already
established and that the Indians refused to return to the life outside of the encomienda. Cortez claimed that
the Indians had been subjected to slavery and used as sacrifices and that a threat that they often used against
any unruly Native was to tell him that he would be returned to his former captors for sacrifice. This, of
course, seems a bit unreasonable due to the fact that the Indians population of Mexico was under Spanish
control or dying of the European diseases. The threat of returning unruly Natives back to their former
enslaves was not something that could have been carried out.
Cortez then reassured the Crown that he was familiar with the atrocities that the encomienda system had
brought to the Natives in Espanola, and would take great measures to make sure that his men did not mistreat
the Indians. He claimed that the Natives of Mexico would not be sent to the mines or plantations for hard
labor and that none of the Spaniards would take it upon themselves to mistreat the Indians under their control.
Cortez wrote that the slaves who were abundant would be the only labor subjected to the hard work and
dangerous conditions of the gold mines.
Next, Cortez disagreed with the Crown when it came to tributes being paid by the Natives. Cortez claimed
that the Indians had no way to pay such a tribute and even if they did it would break the economy of the
Indian towns and the entire region would suffer. He claimed to have seen first hand the destruction that heavy
tributes placed on the Indian populations had on towns and that with the removal of tributes from those towns
the Native populations began to prosper once more.
Finally, Cortez argued that if the encomienda system was abolished then the Crown would not anyone there
to protect the land and to keep it in the hands of the Crown. This was an argument that the Crown could not
ignore. After all Cortez had a point. If the encomienda system was abolished then the men that controlled the
land would rise up and the turmoil would strip the Crown of the prosperous future that might have in the rich
land that Cortez had delivered to them.
Thus the encomienda system was spread to the new lands of Mexico and the overwhelming mistreatment of
the Native population continued. That is until the New Laws of 1542. In the New Laws, which came about
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due to the inhumane treatment of the Native populations, Spain decreed that no longer would the Indians be
subjected to unchecked aggression of the encomenderos. The New Laws established the method of
distribution that is called the repartimiento. The repartimiento de indios, or the distribution of Indians,
allocated certain numbers of Indians to certain Spanish landowners for certain terms of service. Upon the
service, the Indians would be paid a salary and the treatment of the Indian labor would be strictly controlled.
The Indians, or repartidos, as they were called under this system after 1542, were selected and allocated
according to economic need of the landowner or the royal need.
For instance, if the royal mines were in need of increased labor and a local landowner needed more labor to
get his crop in the ground, then the first order of business would be to serve the royal needs first. The
economic stability of the Crown overshadowed the need of the farmer. The repartidos were also under the
control of the government official that distributed the labor and also recalled the labor if any mistreatment
were to take place. There was corruption in the system, as some royal administrators were bought off and
many Indians still suffered inhumane treatment under the control of their boss.
The repartimiento system differed from the original encomienda system due to the fact that the labor force
was paid a salary for their term of work where as under the encomienda system, the laborers had not been
paid or subsidized in any way. In this manner, the Indians could afford to pay tribute to the Crown as the
Crown believed that loyal vassals should have done. After the passing of the New Laws in 1542, the
encomienda referred to this tribute that the Indian labor paid not only to the Crown but also to the
encomenderos, or the Church.
In order for a Spaniard to receive labor he had to appeal to the royal official who would then allocate out the
necessary labor force that the job or jobs required. This royal official would keep up with the number of
Indians placed into this labor field and also the amount of tribute paid out by the Indians. Every Indians
village was subjected to the repartimiento system and according to official numbers each tribal member over
the age of fifteen had to serve six percent of each year under the system. This translates to only one month of
one year but the labor that these Indians were subjected to was enough to kill or seriously injure any strong
male.
Each Indian community had to provide the system with a labor force. Again, numbers indicate that two to
four percent of each community was supplied throughout the year to the system. Numbers also fluctuated
according to the economic necessity of the Spanish landowners. So, some communities could have
contributed as much as fifty percent of the their community labor to the system in a year's time.
After 1542, the repartimiento system took on a more favorable answer to the labor relationships between the
Spaniards and the natives in the New World. Under the encomienda system, Indians were subjected to the
rules and harsh treatment of the landowner, or encomenderos, with little or no care given by the Spanish
Crown. Las Casas attempted to institute reforms to protect the Indians but his extended efforts, which took up
most of his life, came to no satisfactory end. While the Indian labor force under the repartimiento system
were subjected to better treatment and even a salary for their work they were still forced to take part in the
labor to serve the Crown and forced to pay what little salary they received to the Crown. Therefore, it become
apparent that the repartimiento system was not so much a humanitarian effort as it was a measure by the
Spanish Crown to keep their labor force alive and more willing to work for the Crown.
Bibliography
Simpson, Lesley Byrd, The Encomienda in New Spain, (Berkley: University of California Press, 1950)
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Poole, Stafford C.M., ed. In Defense of the Indians The Defense of the Most Reverend Lord, Don Fray
Bartolomé de Las Casas, of the Order of Preachers, Late Bishop of Chiapa, Against the Persecutors and
Slanderers of the Peoples of the New World Discovered Across the Seas (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University
Press, 1974)
Himmerich y Valencia, Robert, The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521-1555 (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1991)
www.unm.edu/~nvaldes/350/repart.htm. online source used under the heading of "The Repartimiento System"
accessed June 04, 2003.
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