Encomienda

WHEN Spain granted encomiendas to its faithful soldiers and officials in its colonies in the east in 1503, it simply wanted to reward them for services well done. By definition, an encomienda was ‘a right conceded by royal bounty to well-deserving persons in the Indies, to receive and enjoy for themselves who should be assigned them.’ But the encomenderos, the term used for those given charge of encomiendas, had a corresponding obligation to provide ‘for the good of the Indians in spiritual and temporal matters, and of inhabiting and defending the provinces where the encomiendas should be granted to them.’[i]

When it started in the islands, the first beneficiaries were the aging officials and soldiers who came with Legazpi in 1565 and did actual fighting against recalcitrant natives in their initial attempts at subjugation and pacification.[ii] Leaving one’s homeland for an uncertain future in a foreign land that was largely unexplored and uncharted was a very risky enterprise. The boat trip alone which took several months in often rough seas was enough to cause one’s early demise or at least a lingering illness that eventually resulted in death. Thus it became a royal policy to reward the men who went with the conquistador on such voyages.

’The tributes paid to their encomenderos by the natives were assigned by the first governor, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, in the provinces of Vicayas (Visayas) and Pintados, and in the islands of Luzon and its vicinity; they were equal to the sum of eight reals annually for an entire tribute from its tributario. The natives were to pay it in their products – in gold, cloth, cotton, rice, bells, fowls and whatever else they possessed or harvested.’[iii]

Besides collecting tributes from the natives, encomenderos were urged to cultivate the land and induce the natives to do the same, to make the land productive. They were likewise encouraged to raise livestock either by themselves or in company with the tribal chiefs in their jurisdiction.[iv]

But more than the issue of rewards, the encomienda system had a bigger role to play in the subjugation and conversion of the natives. In a colony where settlements were days away from each other, with their respective populations living far from village centers, it seemed reasonable to the colonial officials to deploy their most faithful soldiers to the farthest stretch of the new colony, to remind the natives of their status. The presence of encomenderos with soldiers armed with arquebuses would serve the purpose. Their mere sight left the natives with very little options but to submit themselves to tribute collection. Part of the tributes would provide support to the missionaries in the building of parsonages and churches.[v]
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[i] Op cit, Blair and Robertson, Volume II,  p. 54

[ii] Emma Helen Blair  and James Alexander Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 1493 – 1803, Volume VII, p. 16

[iii] Morga’s Sucesos, Emma Helen Blair  and James Alexander Robertson,  The Philippine Islands, 1493 – 1803, Volume XVI, p. 158

[iv] Emma Helen Blair and James Alexander Robertson, The Philippine Islands, 1493 – 1803, Volume VI, p 172

[v] ‘The Augustinians received also one-fourth of the tribute from the villages while they are building churches; and 200 pesos furtes [i.e., teal-real pieces] and 200 cavans [the cavan equals 25 gantas or 137 Spanish libras] of cleaned rice for four religious who heard confessions during Lent. Fifty cavans of cleaned rice per person seems to us too much. It results that each friar consumes 12 ½ libras of rice [the chupa is ½ ganta or 3 litros] daily, 13 times as much as any Indian.’ [annotation by Rizal in Morga’s Sucesos, Blair and Robertson Volume XVI, p. 154]
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