{ "id": "indivision-y-legitima-de-las-encomiendas", "type": "entity", "name": "Why an encomienda passed whole to one child, and what the father's outlay could be charged against", "summary": "An encomienda was not divided among a man's children, not brought into hotchpot, and not counted against the eldest son's legal share: it passed entire to the one called to succeed, because \"la misma naturaleza de ellas requiere unidad\". The treatise then asks what the brothers get instead, and answers by asking who the father spent his money for. Its premise is that he could have bought the grant, which the same chapter forbids.", "locale": "en", "tags": [ "colonial-law", "colonial-institutions", "encomienda", "law", "law-of-the-indies", "legal-history", "jurisprudence", "feudal-law", "inheritance", "family", "property", "indigenous-peoples", "americas", "spanish-empire", "peru", "new-spain", "seventeenth-century", "colonial-administration" ], "relations": [ { "rel": "related", "target": "transaccion-y-particion-de-las-encomiendas" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "prescripcion-en-las-encomiendas" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "permuta-de-las-encomiendas" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "prohibicion-de-enagenar-las-encomiendas" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "dote-y-renunciacion-de-las-encomiendas" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "empeno-y-embargo-de-los-frutos-de-las-encomiendas" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "encomienda" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "solorzano-politica-indiana" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "segunda-carga-de-las-encomiendas" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "mugeres-y-encomiendas-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "vuelta-de-las-encomiendas-a-la-corona" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "cumulacion-de-encomiendas" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "narrativa-y-calidades-de-los-titulos-de-encomienda" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "nobleza-de-los-encomenderos-de-las-indias" } ], "questions": [ "Was an encomienda divided among an encomendero's children?", "Did the eldest son's encomienda count against his share of the inheritance?", "Could the brothers claim back what their father spent to obtain the encomienda?", "Why did Spanish law insist an encomienda pass whole to one successor?", "Were encomiendas ever bought with money?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "Scope and place. This entry covers §§36-41 of libro III, capítulo XV of Juan de Solórzano Pereira's Política Indiana in the 1736 Madrid impression. §36 opens in the left column of page 308, §37 at the head of its right column, and §41 closes in the left column of page 309 immediately before §42. The chapter's printed SUMARIO, in the left column of page 304, carries two heads for the range: 36, \"Las Encomiendas no se dividen entre los hijos; sino que passa entera al successor\", and 37, \"Los gastos hechos en conseguir la Encomienda, quando se imputan en la legitima? y n. sig.\" — the trailing \"y n. sig.\" covering §§38-41 with no heads of their own. §§34-35 and §§42-59 are treated in separate entries.", "sources": [ "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-indivision-y-legitima" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "The rule of indivision, and its source. §36: \"Assimismo se infiere de lo referido; que de la manera, que en los Mayorazgos, Feudos, y otros derechos semejantes universales, prohibidos de enagenar, no se dividen los bienes, de que constan entre los hijos, ni se traen à particion, y colacion; sino que enteramente se aplican, y adjudican al primogenito, ò llamado por la ley, ò por el Testador: assi tambien nuestras Encomiendas no se dividen, parten, ni colacionan, ni se imputan en la legitima.\" The rule is taken across from entail and feud rather than legislated for the Indies, and it is attributed to Parladoro for the grants of the military orders and to Antonio de León for those of the Indians.", "sources": [ "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-indivision-y-legitima" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "The two grounds given for keeping the grant whole. §36 closes: \"Y nos lo enseña la practica de cada dia, y lo está pidiendo la misma naturaleza de ellas, que requiere unidad, y bastára, para que quando este punto no se hallára tan declarado, y practicado, se huviera de guardar, y practicar en la dicha conformidad.\" Daily practice is one ground and the nature of the thing is the other. The paragraph does not say what the unity is for, and the reader who wants the answer has to take it from elsewhere in the same chapter, where the holder is said to owe the towns protection as \"Patronos, y defensores idoneos à los Indios\": one grant, one man answerable. That the unity requirement carries a protective purpose is this corpus's inference across paragraphs and not a statement here, and the claim is set at 0.85 for that reason.", "sources": [ "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-indivision-y-legitima" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "The question the rule leaves open. §37: \"Pero puede, y aun debe tocarse aqui una buena, y contingente question: conviene à saber, si ya que la Encomienda no se divida entre los hijos, ni se impute al mayor, que la lleva en quenta de la legitima, si por lo menos se le podrà imputar la cantidad, que pareciere haver gastado su padre por conseguirla, ò en seguir, vencer, ò componer los pleytos, que sobre ella se recrecieron? supuesto, que si todo el provecho de ella se le ha de llevar el hijo mayor, parece puesto en razon, y equidad, que si quiera estos gastos se resarzan, y repartan por igual entre sus hermanos.\" The equity is stated in the younger children's favour before it is answered against them.", "sources": [ "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-indivision-y-legitima" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "The answer, and the premise it rests on. §38 reports \"varias opiniones\" in Mangilio and Rosenthal and then gives the author's own for the Indies: \"que si el padre compró la Encomienda, ò por otra via la compuso con su dinero, y hacienda, para haverla, y adquirirla para si, y tenerla, y gozarla en primera vida por todo el tiempo, que la suya durasse, no se podrá pedir, ni imputar al hijo, que succediere en la segunda, cosa alguna por titulo, y causa de los dichos gastos, y expensas.\" The premise is worth as much as the holding: the same chapter's §§1-9 state a total prohibition on alienating an encomienda and cite cédulas ordering severe punishment of those who sold or transferred the Indians, and here the standard treatise reasons from a father who bought one or composed for it with his own money and estate as an ordinary case. No cédula permitting purchase or composición is cited at this paragraph, and none was opened here.", "sources": [ "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-indivision-y-legitima" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c6", "text": "The distinction, and the reason for it. §39 states the contrary case, where the father made the outlay \"para adquirir derechamente esta Encomienda al hijo, y que en él comenzassen à contarse, y correr ambas vidas, y assi se hallasse puesto, y despachado en su cabeza el titulo de ella\". §40 gives the reason: in the first case \"aquel derecho se radica en la persona del padre, y assi es visto haver mirado, y gastado mas por si, y para si, que no para el hijo, cuya succession en segunda vida, viene como en consequencia de la primera, y por disposicion de la ley\"; in the second, \"como toda aquella negociacion, y su gasto se hizo meramente para dexar aprovechado, remediado, y acomodado aquel hijo\", the encomienda may be valued and brought to partition like \"otras milicias, oficios, honras, y ocupaciones semejantes transmissibles à los herederos\". The test is whose benefit the father was buying.", "sources": [ "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-indivision-y-legitima" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c7", "text": "What the author says he is weighing, and the comparison he reaches for. §41: \"Y he hecho especial ponderacion, de que la Encomienda no solo ha de durar por la vida del hijo; sino por la de otro heredero suyo conforme à la ley de la succession: porque à ser por sola su vida, fuera mas cierto, que no venia en colacion, ni se le podia imputar en su legitima, aunque el padre huviesse hecho muchas expensas para adquirirsela: como acontece en el grado de Doctor, en que le pone, ò en la Prebenda de alguna Iglesia, (por gruessa que sea) que le negocia, y aun en el Obispado, y expedicion de sus Bulas; sino es, que dexe declarado expressamente lo contrario en su Testamento.\" A doctorate, a canonry and a bishopric are the things an encomienda is set beside: purchasable advantages a father buys for a son, which die with the man and so are not charged against his share.", "sources": [ "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-indivision-y-legitima" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c8", "text": "What this entry establishes and what it does not. It establishes that the standard treatise on the law of the Indies held encomiendas indivisible among a holder's children, not brought to partition or hotchpot and not imputed to the legítima, on the model of entails and feuds and on the authority of Parladoro and Antonio de León, grounding it on daily practice and on a nature that \"requiere unidad\"; and that it resolved the consequential question of the father's expenses by asking for whose benefit he spent, refusing the brothers any claim where the grant was got for the father himself, and allowing valuation and partition where it was got directly for the son. It establishes nothing about enforcement: no estate, no family, no suit and no sum appears in the range, no cédula or law of the Recopilación is cited in any of the six paragraphs, and the whole doctrine is drawn from feudal and Castilian entail law. The Indians whose tribute is the entire value being kept undivided are not mentioned once in §§36 to 41; what is preserved whole is a revenue and an honour, and the paragraphs discuss it in the vocabulary of doctorates and church prebends.", "sources": [ "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-indivision-y-legitima" ], "confidence": 0.9 } ], "takeaways": [], "faqs": [], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "industry_observation", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": false, "winning_edge": "Accessible accounts of the encomienda say it was granted \"for two lives\" and stop, so a reader cannot tell what happened when a holder died leaving four children. The chapter that settles it has not been quoted in English: the grant is not divided, not brought to partition or hotchpot and not charged against the eldest son's legítima, but passes entire to the one called, because daily practice and \"la misma naturaleza de ellas requiere unidad\". The entry then prints the harder half, which no summary carries: the treatise's own equity argument for the younger children, and the test it answers with — whether the father spent his money for himself or directly for that son. It puts three costs on the record in the same voice. The doctrine is imported wholesale from feudal and entail law, with no cédula and no law of the Recopilación cited in six paragraphs. Its worked premise is a father who bought or composed for an encomienda with his own money, which the same chapter's opening paragraphs flatly prohibit. And the thing being kept undivided is the tribute of Indian towns whose people are not named once in the range, discussed in the same breath as a purchased doctorate or a fat prebend.", "confidence": 0.85, "last_verified": "2026-09-26", "media": [], "x": {}, "canonical_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/indivision-y-legitima-de-las-encomiendas", "api_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/api/k/indivision-y-legitima-de-las-encomiendas.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "Why an encomienda passed whole to one child, and what the father's outlay could be charged against", "description": "An encomienda was not divided among a man's children, not brought into hotchpot, and not counted against the eldest son's legal share: it passed entire to the one called to succeed, because \"la misma naturaleza de ellas requiere unidad\". The treatise then asks what the brothers get instead, and answers by asking who the father spent his money for. Its premise is that he could have bought the grant, which the same chapter forbids.", "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/indivision-y-legitima-de-las-encomiendas", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-09-26", "citation": [ { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Política Indiana, libro III, capítulo XV, §§36-41 — that an encomienda is not divided among the children, and whether what the father spent to obtain it is charged to the eldest son's share: at §36 the rule, that in the manner in which 'en los Mayorazgos, Feudos, y otros derechos semejantes universales, prohibidos de enagenar, no se dividen los bienes, de que constan entre los hijos, ni se traen à particion, y colacion; sino que enteramente se aplican, y adjudican al primogenito, ò llamado por la ley, ò por el Testador: assi tambien nuestras Encomiendas no se dividen, parten, ni colacionan, ni se imputan en la legitima', as Parladoro noted of the grants of the military orders and Antonio de León of those of the Indians, 'Y nos lo enseña la practica de cada dia, y lo está pidiendo la misma naturaleza de ellas, que requiere unidad'; at §37 the contingent question, whether, since the encomienda is neither divided nor imputed to the eldest son in account of his legítima, 'si por lo menos se le podrà imputar la cantidad, que pareciere haver gastado su padre por conseguirla, ò en seguir, vencer, ò componer los pleytos, que sobre ella se recrecieron', it seeming reasonable and equitable that these expenses at least be made good and shared equally among the brothers; at §38 the author's own resolution, that 'si el padre compró la Encomienda, ò por otra via la compuso con su dinero, y hacienda, para haverla, y adquirirla para si, y tenerla, y gozarla en primera vida por todo el tiempo, que la suya durasse, no se podrá pedir, ni imputar al hijo, que succediere en la segunda, cosa alguna por titulo, y causa de los dichos gastos, y expensas'; at §39 the contrary case, where the father made the outlay 'para adquirir derechamente esta Encomienda al hijo, y que en él comenzassen à contarse, y correr ambas vidas, y assi se hallasse puesto, y despachado en su cabeza el titulo de ella'; at §40 the reason of the distinction, that in the first case the right is rooted in the father's person, 'y assi es visto haver mirado, y gastado mas por si, y para si, que no para el hijo, cuya succession en segunda vida, viene como en consequencia de la primera, y por disposicion de la ley', whereas in the second the whole negotiation was made merely to leave that son provided for, so that the encomienda may be valued and brought to partition 'que hacemos en otras milicias, oficios, honras, y ocupaciones semejantes transmissibles à los herederos'; and at §41 the special weight the author places on the encomienda lasting not only for the son's life 'sino por la de otro heredero suyo conforme à la ley de la succession: porque à ser por sola su vida, fuera mas cierto, que no venia en colacion, ni se le podia imputar en su legitima, aunque el padre huviesse hecho muchas expensas para adquirirsela: como acontece en el grado de Doctor, en que le pone, ò en la Prebenda de alguna Iglesia, (por gruessa que sea) que le negocia, y aun en el Obispado, y expedicion de sus Bulas; sino es, que dexe declarado expressamente lo contrario en su Testamento'", "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=huEykw_YtzYC&pg=PA308" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "Why an encomienda passed whole to one child, and what the father's outlay could be charged against" } }