Encomienda

The encomienda was a system of early colonial New Spain under which the Crown “entrusted” indigenous communities to a Spaniard, the encomendero. He was entitled to their tribute and labor and was in exchange obliged to protect them and instruct them in Christianity; in practice the system led to severe abuses, which the New Laws of 1542 tried to curb.

Do not confuse it with the repartimiento, a later system of rotating forced labor drafts, or with the hacienda, the large private rural estate of later colonial times.