World history concepts · AP World History: Modern
Encomienda system
Encomienda system: A Spanish colonial labor system that granted colonists the right to demand labor or tribute from Indigenous people in exchange for supposed protection and religious instruction.
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What it means
Under the encomienda, Spanish settlers received grants of Indigenous labor. In practice, it led to severe exploitation and population decline. Critics such as Bartolomé de las Casas condemned the abuses, and the Spanish crown attempted reforms in the sixteenth century.
Other coerced labor systems in Spanish America included the mita, adapted from an Inca system of rotational labor, and later the hacienda system.
Example
Las Casas' writings describing the treatment of Indigenous laborers were intended to persuade the crown to reform the system.
On the exam
The encomienda is a Unit 4 topic, often compared with other labor systems such as the mita and chattel slavery.
Lessons and practice questions
Related terms
- Mit'a (mita) systemA system of rotational labor obligation used by the Inca and later adapted by Spanish colonizers, notably to staff silver mines.
- Columbian ExchangeThe transfer of plants, animals, diseases, people and ideas between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres after 1492.
- Atlantic slave tradeThe forced transport of millions of enslaved Africans to the Americas from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.