encomienda Hist.
(ɛnkəʊmɪˈɛndə)
[Sp., = commission, charge, n. corresp. to the vb. encomendar to commit, charge; cf. med.L. phr. in commendam (see commendam).]
An estate granted to a Spaniard in America, with powers to exact taxation and corvée from the Indian inhabitants; such authority; a system derived from such authority. Also encomenˈdero, the holder of an encomienda.
| 1810 Eclectic Rev. VI. ii. 1065 The systematic slavery of the encomiendas having been annulled by Charles III. 1818 Docs. Congr. U.S. For. Rel. (1834) IV. 325 (Stanford), All these regulations were found ineffectual to secure the Indians against the rapacity of the encomenderos, and encomiendas were abolished. 1877 Encycl. Brit. VI. 174/1 That system of repartimientos or encomiendas which was afterwards to work such cruel mischief among the conquered. 1885 Ibid. XVIII. 677/2 ‘Encomiendas’, or grants of estates on which the inhabitants were bound to pay tribute and give personal service to the grantee. 1952 Bertrand & Petrie Hist. Spain (ed. 2) xxiii. 198 The encomenderos, to whom territories and whole populations of Indians were granted on the condition of feeding them and instructing them in the Christian faith—these colonists declared that there was nothing to be done with the Indians. 1964 M. Harris Patterns of Race in Americas ii. 18 In the highlands..the dominant form of labour appropriation..was known as the encomienda... A man who had performed service..in the conquest of the new territories was rewarded with the privilege of collecting tribute and drafting labor among a stated group of Indians... Cortes..received an encomienda consisting of twenty-two townships. |