Encomienda Incomes in the 1550´s: Christian Piety and Deconstruction

Abstract

In 1548, after the defeat of the encomienda sector led by G. Pizarro, La Gasca inaugurates a policy designed to reform the regime of Spanish dominion. The General Tax on tributes from encomiendas (1549) will be the main step in this programme, and those responsible (La Gasea, Santillán, the Dommicans ... ) would later consider that it represented a considerable relief for the Indians. This article, however, shows that the tax as well as the reinspections of the fifties, when they globally replaced "personal services" by fixed quantities of goods, ended the "native way" of paying tribute that the early Spanish Jandowners kept alive (negotiation in terms of human energy), and as a result contributed to the profound modification of the structures of ethnic communities.