Indigenous leaders were charged with mobilising the assessed tribute and labour. In the encomienda, the Spanish Crown granted a person a specified number of natives from a specific community but did not dictate which individuals in the community would have to provide their labour. Įncomiendas devolved from their original Iberian form into a form of 'communal' slavery. In the conquest era of the early sixteenth century, the grants were considered to be a monopoly on the labour of particular groups of indigenous peoples, held in perpetuity by the grant holder, called the encomendero following the New Laws of 1542, upon the death of the encomendero, the encomienda ended and was replaced by the repartimiento. The Crown awarded an encomienda as a grant to a particular individual. Conquered peoples were considered vassals of the Spanish monarch. The encomienda was first established in Spain following the Christian conquest of Moorish territories (known to Christians as the Reconquista), and it was applied on a much larger scale during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Spanish Philippines. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military protection and education.

The encomienda ( Spanish pronunciation: ( listen)) was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples.

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