Encomienda System Notes and Activities Video New Spain

Encomienda System Notes and Activities

Video • New Spain, Spanish Explorers and Spanish Colonies Video (6: 32 Mins) • https: //www. filepicker. io/api/file/ib. YAJun 2 RUe. MVFm. HUi 1 p • Then discuss a definition for the Encomienda System in your group

5 W’s of the Encomienda System • What: • Encomienda System - a grant of land made by Spain to a settler in the Americas, including the right to use Native Americans as laborers on it. • Who & When: • Spain from the 1500 s to the late-1500 s/early-1600 s • Where: • Areas in the Americas claimed by Spain • Specifically, present-day Mexico, Central America, Western South America, and part of South and Southwest United States • Why: • To set up a system of how the land people would be controlled ensuring that Spain profited from these new lands • To protect the natives and to teach them the Catholic faith • Reward explorers, conquistadors, and settlers

How did the Encomienda System work? • Hacienda – land granted to a Conquistador, explorer or settler in the New World • Patrón - head of the Hacienda– he was in charge of the people and peasants that lived and worked on the land • Encomienda System is what provided the labor for the Hacienda • Patrón obligated to pay workers, educate them, protect them and make sure they could live off the land • this is NOT what ends up happening

How did the Encomienda System work? • Encomienda System is set up much like a Caste System or Feudal System in the Middle Ages • A system to subjugated or keep down the lower classes • Peninsulares – people born in Spain – in control • Creoles – both parents are Spanish (pure blood), but they were born in the colonies rather than in Spain • Could inherit the land from their parents if they were Peninsulares.

How did the Encomienda System work? • Made up of two groups – working people of Spanish society in the colonies – mainly in small towns and communities • 3 a – Mestizos – mixed blood of children from a Peninsulares and a Native Indians – because they have some Spanish blood they are considered above any native • 3 b – Mulattos – mixed blood but with a Peninsulares and an African slave – higher place in society because they are not purely a slave • Forced Labor - lowest group • Native Americans and slaves from Africa • Had no rights – worked on sugar plantations or in gold/silver mines – treated harshly

Encomienda System Fails • Originally designed to protect and education (religiously) Native Americans in Spanish colonies • Degraded into nothing more than systematic oppression and exploitation • Natives were required to pay tribute (money or resources) set by the Patrón • End up caught in a vicious cycle: too poor to pay for the food they needed, so force to work harder and longer to earn more money. • This led to many Native Americans dying from disease, starvation, and exhaustion • The Spanish needed a new source of labor in their colonies

Bartolome de Las Casas • Bartolome de Las Casas was a Spanish religious leader who spoke out against the Encomienda System and wanted new laws to protect and free Native Americans in 1539. • By 1542, New Laws were passed to reform the Encomienda System, but not end the Encomienda System • New rights for Native Americans indirectly caused an increase the number of enslaved Africans sent to the

Legacy of the Encomienda System • Encomienda System causes the exploitation and oppression of the Native Americans in Spanish colonies • Causes the destruction of native culture, religion and population, especially ancient civilizations (Aztecs and Incas) • Leads to the use of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (TAST)

The End