Encomiendas in Peru

An encomienda in Peru was a reward offered to each of the men under the leadership of Francisco Pizarro who began the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532.

Theoretically, the encomendero grantee did not own the people or the land occupied by his subjects, but only the right to tribute, usually in the form of labor, that he could extract from them.

[4][5] Encomiendas varied in size and wealth, with the Pizarros and other military leaders receiving much larger and richer grants than the rank and file among their soldiers.

However, even the most humble members of the conquering army acquired wealth and social status far beyond what they could have hoped for in Spain or in other Spanish colonies.

The grant of an encomienda enabled the recipient to enjoy a "lordly rank and life-style" and encomenderos, often of humble origins, dominated local governments and were economically important.

[10] During the centuries-long reconquest of Spain, Spanish Christian leaders awarded encomiendas to individuals for their military services in gaining control of territory and people ruled by the Muslims.

In Peru, the first encomenderos were 40 aged and injured Spanish soldiers who Pizzaro left as a rear guard in the town of Piura as he led his main force inland to confront the Inca Empire in 1532.

Shortly after Cajamarca, Pizarro was joined by Diego de Almagro with 200 additional men and the Spaniards continued the conquest by capturing Cuzco and establishing a Spanish city there in 1534.

The governor of Peru (initially Pizzaro himself) and the captains of the conquering armies had the authority to grant encomiendas, although the encomendero was required to pay taxes to the Crown of Spain.

By 1560, those given or retaining encomiendas were soldiers from the days of the conquest, elites of Spanish society, military leaders of distinction during the civil wars, and people with good connections.

[12] In 1570, the number of encomiendas in Peru (which included Ecuador, Bolivia, and northern Chile at that time) peaked at about 470 and the encomenderos reached the apogee of their economic and political importance.

Although the Incan mit'a does not appear to have been as exploitative as the Spanish encomienda, both were systems of corvée or forced labor in which the Andeans worked for the benefit of an overlord.

Also hired by most encomenderos were "estancieros": Spaniards, Portuguese, or Canary Islanders of modest heritage and low prestige who lived among the Andeans and were usually herders and farmers.

They were killed or died in large numbers in the civil wars and indigenous revolts that broke out during the first 40 years after the initial conquest.

Beginning in the 1570s, the male labor force south of Cuzco, including that of the encomiendas, was required to travel and work in the silver mines in Potosí.

Additional levies of Andean labor were made for notoriously-unhealthy work in the mercury mine at Huancavelica and in manufacturing textiles in northern Peru.

The small wages they earned for difficult and dangerous work helped them pay the annual cash tribute they owed to the encomenderos.

The native American slaves were non-Andeans, imported from Nicaragua and Venezuela, relatively few in number and absorbed into the general population of Peru after enslavement of indigenous people in the Americas was outlawed by Spain in the 1540s.

In 1542, King Charles V expressed that concern by adopting the New Laws which abolished slavery and the encomienda system in the Spanish colonies of the New World.

The encomenderos offered a cash payment of 7.6 million pesos to the debt-burdened Crown, twice the amount of the Spanish national debt.

The action united all factions against Garcia and limited the effectiveness of the corregidors, but also destroyed the aspirations of both the eoncomenderos and the caciques for control of rural Peru.

In 1569, with the appointment of Francisco de Toledo as Viceroy and his policy of reductions (concentrating the indigenous people of Peru into Spanish-style villages to facilitate Spanish government control and Christianization), the aspirations of encomenderos and caciques received another blow.

[32] In the 17th century, encomenderos retained some of their prestige, but steadily lost their economic importance due to the diversification of the Peruvian economy and declines in the Andean population of Peru.