{
  "id": "cargas-militares-y-juramento-de-los-encomenderos",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "The first charge of the encomienda: the oath of fidelity and arms, and the musters the encomenderos were supposed to be called to",
  "summary": "Before he could take possession, an encomendero swore fidelity to the king and promised to keep arms and a horse and to fight for the defence of the province where his encomienda lay. A cédula of 1575 approved writing that oath and the other charges into the grant itself; a letter of 1532 to the Audiencia of Mexico ordered viceroys and governors to hold musters to see whether the encomenderos were in fact equipped. The treatise classes the grant as a modal donation.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "colonial-law",
    "colonial-institutions",
    "encomienda",
    "military",
    "military-history",
    "law",
    "legal-history",
    "americas",
    "spanish-empire",
    "peru",
    "new-spain",
    "mexico",
    "seventeenth-century",
    "colonial-administration",
    "indigenous-peoples"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "feudatarios-y-domiciliarios-de-las-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "segunda-carga-de-las-encomiendas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "carga-de-residir-de-los-encomenderos"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "tributos-y-servicios-vedados-a-los-encomenderos"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "escudero-y-sustitucion-en-las-encomiendas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "encomienda"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "solorzano-politica-indiana"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "narrativa-y-calidades-de-los-titulos-de-encomienda"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "puga-cedulario-1563"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "avendano-thesaurus-indicus-1668"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "las-siete-partidas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "recopilacion-de-leyes-de-indias"
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    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "milicias-de-pardos-y-morenos"
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    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "milicia-y-descripcion-de-las-indias-1599"
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    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "lanzas-y-arcabuzes-del-peru"
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    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "asiento-de-los-lanzas-en-el-banco-de-los-nobles"
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    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "legados-de-restitucion-de-los-encomenderos"
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    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "acosta-de-procuranda-indorum-salute-1588"
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  ],
  "questions": [
    "What did an encomendero have to swear before receiving his encomienda?",
    "Were encomenderos required to keep weapons and a horse?",
    "Did encomenderos have military obligations in Spanish America?",
    "What were the charges or cargas of an encomienda?",
    "Were encomenderos ever mustered or inspected?",
    "Was the encomienda legally a gift or a contract?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "The chapter and its place in the series. Libro III, capítulo XXV of Juan de Solórzano Pereira's Política Indiana is headed \"DE LAS CARGAS DE LAS ENCOMIENDAS, y en particular de las Militares, y del juramento, que por razon de ellas están obligados à hacer los Encomenderos, y de sus efectos.\" The heading stands at the foot of the right column of page 363, under an asterisked note of the 1736 editor, \"De la materia de las Encomiendas trata el tit. 8. y siguientes, lib.6. de la Recop.\"; the printed SUMARIO runs from head 1 at the foot of the same column across both columns of page 364 to head 79, and the body opens at §1 in the right column of page 364. This is the chapter on the FIRST charge of the encomienda, the military one; the second charge, instruction and protection, and the third, residence, are treated in the two following chapters. This entry is scoped to §§1-9, that is to the juridical nature of the grant, the oath itself and the musters; §§10 onward are treated separately and nothing here rests on them.",
      "sources": [
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      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "The grant is classified as a donation with strings, and the classification is argued rather than asserted. At §1 the author recalls that in the first chapters of the book he had said the encomienda \"se podia comparar à la Donacion, que el Derecho llama Modal: porque la liberalidad, que exerce el Principe, que hace esta gracia, và mezclada, y modificada con las cargas, que pone al que la recibe\", jurists inferring from this that such modal donations \"se pueden mas propiamente llamar Contratos, pues passan en fuerza de ellos\". At §2 he takes the other side: following a gloss of Accursius he holds it \"por mas verdadero, que se quedan en especie de donacion, quando lo que se da excede, lo que puedan valer las cargas\", and says he is now more confirmed in that view because the feudists say the same — that although the vassal is bound to serve his lord in war and peace, so that \"por esta parte parece se hace un contrato, que los Griegos llaman Synallagma, que quiere decir, obligatorio por ambas partes\", what is granted in feud \"excede mucho de ordinario à las cargas, y servicios, que la pensionan\", so the thing takes the name of what prevails in it, a donation \"aunque no simple, y absoluta; sino modificada con las dichas obligaciones.\"",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-cargas-militares-y-juramento"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The authorities, and one of them is a Castilian statute. At §3 Wesenbeck, Alberico Gentili and Martin Magerus are cited as holding \"por llano, que el Vassallo siempre recibe mas provecho del Feudo, de lo que pueden montar los gastos de los servicios, à que se obliga: Que es lo mismo, que passa en nuestras Encomiendas\", which a \"célebre ley de Partida\" had already taught, adding after examples much like them: \"E qualquier Donacion, de las que son dichas en esta ley, se dicen en Latin sub modo.\" At §4 Isernia and the other feudists are said to call feuds outright \"Contratos Synallagmaticos, ò ultrà; citroque Obligatorios\", a doctrine Juan Matienzo applied to the encomiendas; and on the charges and obligations of the encomienda the author names as having written well Joseph de Acosta, Don Francisco de Alfaro and Antonio de León. None of these works was opened here; they are named as this page names them.",
      "sources": [
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      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "The oath itself, in the words of the page. At §5, of the charges \"la primera, y principal es, que el Encomendero, que recibe de el Rey la Encomienda, le prometa, y jure fidelidad, y especial servicio, y Vassallage por esta merced, y estár presto, y prompto con armas, y cavallo, para militar, y pelear por él contra qualesquier Enemigos, siempre que para ello fuere llamado, y cuidar, quanto en si fuere, de la defensa de el Reyno, en especial de la Provincia, donde cáe la Encomienda.\" The oath runs to the king and to the defence of the kingdom and province. Nothing in its terms as printed here is owed to the Indians of the encomienda; the duties owed to them are the subject of the following chapter and not of this clause.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-cargas-militares-y-juramento"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "The oath preceded possession, and in 1575 the crown ordered it written into the title deed. At §6 \"este juramento deben hacer, antes que tomen possession de ella, y de él se hace particular memoria en muchas Cedulas Reales, que se podrán ver en el segundo tomo de las impressas\", among them \"una de el año de 1575, dirigida à D. Francisco de Toledo, Virrey del Perú, que aprueba, y alaba el haver mandado, que este juramento, y las demás cargas de los Encomenderos se insertassen en los Titulos, que se les despachan para las Encomiendas.\" The 1736 editor's footnote to the passage cites the printed cedularios at \"Sched. 2. tom. pag. 218. & seqq.\" and adds, between his asterisks, \"L.4. tit. 9. lib.6. Recop.\" Neither the cédula of 1575 nor that law was opened in its own printing here.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-cargas-militares-y-juramento"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "The eighteenth-century editor attaches a run of asterisked additions from a Jesuit moralist, and they bind the conscience where the chapter does not. On how the oath obliges in the internal forum the editor cites Diego de Avendaño, Thesaurus Indicus tom. 1 tit. 7 nu. 2, for the proposition that encomenderos \"no deben estar escrupulosos en su observancia … porque el juramento no aumenta la obligacion; sino la afianza\". He then reports that where Avendaño does aggravate the encomendero's conscience \"es, en la proteccion de los Indios, y su Doctrina, sin que les sirva de escusa, que tienen Doctrineros\" — an excuse recorded as being made. Further additions: that absence without licence loses the fruits with an obligation to restore them, pro rata to the time of absence; that imprisonment by the encomendero's own fault does not excuse him, since \"la prision supone delito\", and he should ask licence to put in an escudero; that encomenderos should find out whether the doctrineros are doing their duty and may take declarations themselves without a notary to report to the bishop, and if the bishop is negligent \"debe acudir al Vice Patrono\"; and that the duty of keeping arms and a horse is strict where invasion by enemies of the land or by foreigners may be feared but excused where there is no such fear, and excusable in old age or habitual infirmity — to which the editor adds his own contrary opinion, that the man should ask the governor's licence to put in a substitute, \"porque la Encomienda se le dió con esta carga precisa de defender la Tierra.\"",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-cargas-militares-y-juramento"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "One of the editor's additions is the plainest statement of paternalism on these pages and is printed here in full for that reason. Between his asterisks, on restitution owed by an encomendero: \"Y que quando se aya de restituir algo à los Indios no sea en dinero; sino en vestuario, ù otra cosa, que les sea útil, porque no lo malgasten.\" The passage concedes that restitution to the Indians was owed and simultaneously denies them the choice of its form on the ground that they would waste it. It is the 1736 editor's addition, reporting Avendaño at n. 19, not Solórzano's text, and it stands next to the same editor's insistence that having a salaried doctrinero is no excuse for the encomendero's neglect of protection and instruction.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-cargas-militares-y-juramento"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c8",
      "text": "There was an inspection mechanism, ordered from Spain in 1532 and printed in a Mexican compilation. At §7, \"entre las Ordenanzas de Mexico, que compiló el Lic. Puga, está una Carta del año de 1532, escrita à la Audiencia de Mexico, con la qual contesta otra de el de 1552 … en que se dice, que han de servir los Encomenderos en la defensa Militar de sus Provincias, tumultos, y sediciones, que en ellas se ofrecieren: y que para esto los Virreyes, Audiencias, y Governadores los exerciten, y hagan de ordinario muestras, y alardes, porque se vea si están apercibidos, como conviene, y se hallen mas industriados, y exercitados en el manejo de las armas para las ocasiones, que pudieren acontecer.\" The treatise's footnote places the letter at \"Ordin. Mexic. fol. 79\" of Vasco de Puga's compilation. The treatise does not say who the enemies in the \"tumultos, y sediciones\" were expected to be, and does not record that any such muster was ever held.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-cargas-militares-y-juramento"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c9",
      "text": "The muster is defended as ordinary military law rather than as a colonial device. At §8 the requirement is \"Precepto, que tambien han puesto muchas leyes del Derecho Comun, y del Reyno, y todos los AA, que escriben de re militari, tratando como se han de hacer estos alardes, y qué personas tienen obligacion de salir à ellos\", the reason being, in Cassiodorus's words as the author gives them, that \"en la Paz ha de aprender el Soldado, lo que le pueda despues aprovechar en la Guerra: y si este Arte no se aprende, y exercita primero, como jugando, hace falta, quando el tiempo, y las ocasiones piden se tome con veras.\"",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-cargas-militares-y-juramento"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c10",
      "text": "The chapter closes the argument by assimilating the encomienda to the strict feud, and the comparison it draws is not flattering to the encomendero. At §9, \"en la carga de este juramento de fidelidad, y servicios Militares, como en otras muchas cosas, se assimilan nuestras Encomiendas à los Feudos rectos, de que usan muchas Naciones\", whose nature is that the same oath be sworn and that the vassal serve in person the lord of the direct dominion, \"De donde es, que el Feudo se tiene, y juzga por cierta especie de servidumbre, ò esclavitud, ò que el Feudatario se compare al Liberto\". The servitude in that sentence is the encomendero's towards the king, not the Indians' towards the encomendero, and the page says nothing about the latter. The same paragraph holds that even if nothing were said of these services at the time of the grant or the investiture, the vassals and their successors remain bound to them.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-cargas-militares-y-juramento"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c11",
      "text": "What this entry establishes and what it does not. It establishes that the standard seventeenth-century treatise on the law of the Indies treated the military service and the oath of fidelity as the first and principal charge of the encomienda; that the oath was to be sworn before possession and, by a cédula of 1575 approved to the viceroy Francisco de Toledo, to be written into the grant itself; that a letter of 1532 to the Audiencia of Mexico, printed in Puga's compilation, required viceroys, audiencias and governors to hold regular musters of encomenderos; that the grant was classified as a modal donation rather than a synallagmatic contract because what was given commonly exceeded the burdens; and that the 1736 editor added, from Avendaño, that the oath does not increase the obligation but secures it, that having doctrineros is no excuse, and that restitution owed to Indians should be made in clothing rather than money \"porque no lo malgasten\". It establishes nothing about whether any muster was ever held, whether any encomendero was ever called out, or whether the arms they were bound to keep were ever used for or against the Indians of the encomienda: not one muster, engagement or penalty appears in these nine paragraphs. None of the cédulas, letters or laws named was opened in its own register or printing; they are known here only as this book reports them. The author is a minister of the Council of the Indies writing about a regime his own court administered.",
      "sources": [
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      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [],
  "faqs": [],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "industry_observation",
    "source_types": [
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    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "English-language accounts of the encomienda describe tribute and labour and then the debate over whether it was slavery; they rarely mention that the grant carried a sworn military charge at all, and no accessible source prints the terms of the oath. This object does, from the chapter of the standard treatise devoted to it, together with the two documents that made it operative: the cédula of 1575 that ordered the oath copied into every title, and the letter of 1532 to the Audiencia of Mexico that ordered periodic musters to check that encomenderos actually had the arms and horse they had sworn to keep. It also prints the lawyer's argument about what kind of thing the grant was — a donation with conditions, not a bilateral contract, because what was given exceeded what was owed — which is the legal premise underneath every later dispute about whether the crown could tax, reduce or revoke an encomienda. The counterpoints are in the claims rather than in a caveat: the oath is owed to the king and to the defence of the province, not to the Indians; the treatise never records a muster actually held; and the eighteenth-century editor's additions, printed here in full, both insist that a salaried doctrinero is no excuse for neglecting the Indians and direct that anything restored to them be given in clothing rather than money so they should not waste it.",
  "confidence": 0.85,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-22",
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    "name": "The first charge of the encomienda: the oath of fidelity and arms, and the musters the encomenderos were supposed to be called to",
    "description": "Before he could take possession, an encomendero swore fidelity to the king and promised to keep arms and a horse and to fight for the defence of the province where his encomienda lay. A cédula of 1575 approved writing that oath and the other charges into the grant itself; a letter of 1532 to the Audiencia of Mexico ordered viceroys and governors to hold musters to see whether the encomenderos were in fact equipped. The treatise classes the grant as a modal donation.",
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    "dateModified": "2026-09-22",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Política Indiana, libro III, capítulo XXV, §§1-9 — the first charge of the encomienda: the chapter heading 'DE LAS CARGAS DE LAS ENCOMIENDAS, y en particular de las Militares, y del juramento, que por razon de ellas están obligados à hacer los Encomenderos, y de sus efectos' with the 1736 editor's asterisked note beneath it, 'De la materia de las Encomiendas trata el tit. 8. y siguientes, lib.6. de la Recop.', and the printed SUMARIO of seventy-nine heads; the classification of the grant at §1, that in the first chapters of the book the author had said the encomienda 'se podia comparar à la Donacion, que el Derecho llama Modal: porque la liberalidad, que exerce el Principe, que hace esta gracia, và mezclada, y modificada con las cargas, que pone al que la recibe', whence jurists infer that such donations 'se pueden mas propiamente llamar Contratos, pues passan en fuerza de ellos'; the author's contrary position at §2, following a gloss of Accursius, that they remain 'en especie de donacion, quando lo que se da excede, lo que puedan valer las cargas', confirmed by the feudists reported by Rosenthal, who concede that the vassal is bound to serve in war and peace so that 'por esta parte parece se hace un contrato, que los Griegos llaman Synallagma, que quiere decir, obligatorio por ambas partes', but hold that what is granted 'excede mucho de ordinario à las cargas, y servicios, que la pensionan'; the authorities at §3, Wesenbeck, Alberico Gentili and Martin Magerus, and the 'célebre ley de Partida' adding 'E qualquier Donacion, de las que son dichas en esta ley, se dicen en Latin sub modo'; at §4 Isernia and the feudists calling feuds 'Contratos Synallagmaticos, ò ultrà; citroque Obligatorios', applied to the encomiendas by Juan Matienzo, with Joseph de Acosta, Francisco de Alfaro and Antonio de León named as having written well on their charges; the oath at §5, 'la primera, y principal es, que el Encomendero, que recibe de el Rey la Encomienda, le prometa, y jure fidelidad, y especial servicio, y Vassallage por esta merced, y estár presto, y prompto con armas, y cavallo, para militar, y pelear por él contra qualesquier Enemigos, siempre que para ello fuere llamado, y cuidar, quanto en si fuere, de la defensa de el Reyno, en especial de la Provincia, donde cáe la Encomienda'; at §6 that it is sworn 'antes que tomen possession de ella', with the cédula 'de el año de 1575, dirigida à D. Francisco de Toledo, Virrey del Perú, que aprueba, y alaba el haver mandado, que este juramento, y las demás cargas de los Encomenderos se insertassen en los Titulos, que se les despachan para las Encomiendas', the footnote citing 'Sched. 2. tom. pag. 218. & seqq.' and, between the editor's asterisks, 'L.4. tit. 9. lib.6. Recop.'; the editor's run of asterisked additions from Diego de Avendaño, Thesaurus Indicus tom. 1 tit. 7, on the internal forum ('porque el juramento no aumenta la obligacion; sino la afianza'), on the protection of the Indians and their doctrina 'sin que les sirva de escusa, que tienen Doctrineros', on loss and restitution of fruits for absence without licence, on absence by imprisonment, on informing against negligent doctrineros and resorting to the Vice Patrono, on the arms obligation being excused where no invasion is feared and in old age or habitual infirmity with the editor's own contrary opinion 'porque la Encomienda se le dió con esta carga precisa de defender la Tierra', and on restitution to Indians, 'Y que quando se aya de restituir algo à los Indios no sea en dinero; sino en vestuario, ù otra cosa, que les sea útil, porque no lo malgasten'; the muster order at §7, from 'las Ordenanzas de Mexico, que compiló el Lic. Puga', a 'Carta del año de 1532, escrita à la Audiencia de Mexico' with another of 1552, that encomenderos 'han de servir … en la defensa Militar de sus Provincias, tumultos, y sediciones, que en ellas se ofrecieren: y que para esto los Virreyes, Audiencias, y Governadores los exerciten, y hagan de ordinario muestras, y alardes, porque se vea si están apercibidos', the footnote reading 'Ordin. Mexic. fol. 79'; the general law of the alarde at §8 with Cassiodorus, 'en la Paz ha de aprender el Soldado, lo que le pueda despues aprovechar en la Guerra'; and at §9 the assimilation 'nuestras Encomiendas à los Feudos rectos, de que usan muchas Naciones', 'De donde es, que el Feudo se tiene, y juzga por cierta especie de servidumbre, ò esclavitud, ò que el Feudatario se compare al Liberto', binding the vassals and their successors even if nothing was said of the services at the investiture",
        "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=huEykw_YtzYC&pg=PA363"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "The first charge of the encomienda: the oath of fidelity and arms, and the musters the encomenderos were supposed to be called to"
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}