Encomienda System Slide Show for History

Encomienda System

1. Encomienda System
Notes and Activities

2. Video
•New Spain, Spanish Explorers and Spanish Colonies Video
(6:32 Mins)
•https://www.filepicker.io/api/file/ibYAJun2RUeMVFmHUi1p
•Then discuss a definition for the Encomienda Systemin your
group

3. 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:
•Spainfrom the 1500s to the late-1500s/early-1600s
•Where:
•Areas in the Americasclaimed 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 and people would be controlled
ensuring that Spain profitedfrom these new lands
•To protectthe natives and to teachthem the Catholic faith
•Rewardexplorers, conquistadors, and settlers

5. 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
•Patrónobligated to pay workers, educate them, protect them and
make sure they could live off the land
•this is NOTwhat ends up happening

7. 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 subjugatedor 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.

8. 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
•3a –Mestizos–mixed blood of children from a Peninsularesand a
Native Indians –because they have some Spanish blood they are
considered above any native
•3b –Mulattos–mixed blood but with a Peninsularesand an African
slave –higher place in society because they are not purely a slave
•Forced Labor -lowest group
•Native Americansand slavesfrom Africa
•Had no rights –worked on sugar plantations or in gold/silver mines –
treated harshly

9. Encomienda System Fails
•Originally designed to protect and
education (religiously) Native Americans in
Spanish colonies
•Degraded into nothing more than systematic
oppressionand 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

10. 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 reformthe 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

11. 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)

12. The End