Encomienda System in the Americas

Timeline

1. 1503–1542Hispaniola · HispaniolaThe Spanish Crown granted indigenous communities acquired through conquest to encomenderos as guardians, requiring them to provide Christian instruction and collect tribute and labor service; the system spread with the conquest to Mexico and Peru.
2. 1571–1580Viceroyalty of Peru · Viceroyalty of PeruThe 1542 New Laws prohibited hereditary guardianship and limited abuses, but guardianship rights persisted in Peru and elsewhere. In the 1570s Viceroy Toledo reorganized labor service within the framework of the mita and reducciones; encomienda and state corvée ran in parallel as the system entered its late transformation.
3. 1575–1700New Spain and Peru · Spanish coloniesAfter the 1570s, guardianship gradually became non-transferable and new grants declined; local repartimiento and hacienda estates absorbed labor demands, and the encomienda as a form of colonial labor organization gradually yielded to new structures of land and labor.