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1542 to 1543 - The New Laws The encomienda system  Following the
capture of Cuzco in 1533, Francisco Pizarro began to award encomiendas (meaning "custodies") to the conquistadors. This system had been successful in Mexico and worked by providing allotments of natives and lands to Spaniards who agreed to settle in Peru and colonise it for the Spanish crown. The natives were required to deliver huge quotas of local produce and precious metals to the Spaniard's house, which were often located many miles away from the native's village. To appease the moral concerns that this system provoked the Spaniards were required to provide a missionary priest to convert the natives in their encomienda.Some 480 encomiendas had been awarded by the time of Pizarro's death in 1541. With the conquistadors now in full control of Peru and backed by reinforcements, there was little restraint on the violent and cruel exploitation of the natives in the encomiendas. Some Spaniards argued that the natives were under no greater burdens than they had been under the Inca's mitae tribute system. Pro-native supporters, led by Bartolomé de las Casas, argued that the system was "contrary to the well-being of the Indian republic... against all rules of moral philosophy and theology, and against God's will and his Church". The New Laws  In 1536, King Charles had issued a law confirming encomienda holdings for two generations. The settlers hoped that this might, in time, lead to grants in perpetuity. But the arguments of pro-native supporters, like las Casas, turned the King's heart and caused him to issue the New Laws in 1542.The New Laws were remarkably pro-native, forbidding any kind of native slavery and allowing encomiendas to be reviewed and removed from abusive Spaniards. Of most concern to the Spanish settlers, however, was the ruling that there were to be no further grants of encomiendas and that existing encomiendas were to revert to the Crown on the death of the current holder. King Charles sent a Viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela, to govern Peru after Pizarro's death. He applied the New Laws vigorously, provoking the settlers at every opportunity and causing general unrest. Although King Charles was eventually forced to depose the Viceroy in 1544 and ordered him to return to Spain, the damage had been done and a fresh rebellion was now brewing in Peru. |
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