{
  "id": "transaccion-y-particion-de-las-encomiendas",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Settling and dividing an encomienda: the one boundary dispute two holders could compromise without the king",
  "summary": "Holders of encomiendas could make no transaction or compromise that harmed or bound the king or the next man called to the grant, unless royal licence intervened. One case was carved out. Where two holders were dividing the boundaries of their Indian towns, or settling the count and assessment of the tributaries, the standard treatise holds the division good against crown and successors alike: it is not alienation but a designation of what each already holds.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "colonial-law",
    "colonial-institutions",
    "encomienda",
    "law",
    "law-of-the-indies",
    "legal-history",
    "jurisprudence",
    "legislation",
    "feudal-law",
    "indigenous-rights",
    "indigenous-peoples",
    "land-tenure",
    "americas",
    "spanish-empire",
    "peru",
    "new-spain",
    "seventeenth-century",
    "colonial-administration"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "indivision-y-legitima-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": "empeno-y-embargo-de-los-frutos-de-las-encomiendas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "dote-y-renunciacion-de-las-encomiendas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "encomienda"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "solorzano-politica-indiana"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "tributos-y-tasas-de-los-indios"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "fundo-legal-de-los-pueblos-de-indios"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "visita-de-la-tierra-de-las-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "inhibicion-de-las-audiencias-y-el-fisco-en-pleytos-de-encomiendas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "modos-de-acabarse-las-encomiendas"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "Could two encomenderos settle a dispute between themselves over their encomiendas?",
    "Could an encomendero compromise a lawsuit about his encomienda without the king?",
    "Could the boundaries of two Indian towns held in encomienda be divided by agreement?",
    "Who had to consent before an encomienda was affected by a private settlement?",
    "Was dividing an encomienda's boundaries treated as alienating it?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "Scope and place. This entry covers §§34-35 of libro III, capítulo XV of Juan de Solórzano Pereira's Política Indiana in the 1736 Madrid impression. §34 opens in the lower right column of page 307, immediately after §33, and §35 closes in the left column of page 308 immediately before §36. The chapter is headed \"DE LA TOTAL PROHIBICION, QUE ay de enagenarse las Encomiendas: y si se admiten en ellas renunciaciones, transacciones, ò compromissos?\", so these two paragraphs answer the second half of its own title. The chapter's printed SUMARIO, in the left column of page 304, glosses them as head 34, \"Los possedores de Encomiendas no pueden transigir en perjuicio del Rey, ni del successor\", and head 35, \"Entre Encomenderos bien puede haver transaccion sobre division\". §§1-33 and §§36-59 are treated in separate entries.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-transaccion-y-particion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "The rule. §34 draws it as an inference from the chapter's prohibition on alienating: \"De lo que llevamos dicho se infiere, que tampoco podrán los possedores de las Encomiendas, hacer transaccion, ni compromisso alguno en razon de ellas, que dañe, ù obligue al Rey, ò à sus successores; sino es que intervenga, ò se siga licencia, ò aprobacion Real, ù otros requisitos, que en las transacciones, que se hacen sobre bienes de Mayorazgos, Feudos, ò Emphiteusis deben, y suelen intervenir conforme à Derecho.\" Two interests are protected and they are named: the king's, and that of the men called to succeed in the grant. The paragraph adds that this is \"certissimo, quando de tales conciertos, transacciones, ò compromissos se siguiesse algun daño al Feudo, Mayorazgo, ò Emphiteusi, ò à los llamados à la succession de ellos.\"",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-transaccion-y-particion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The rule's own softening, in the same paragraph. §34 continues that where the settlement is made \"sobre punto, y pleyto dudoso, ò dando algo por escusarle, ò por via de amigable composicion, podriamos defender lo contrario, como en los Feudos lo resuelve una decision Avenoniense, y en los Beneficios algunos textos, latamente illustrados por Abad Panormitano, y otros Escribientes.\" A genuinely doubtful lawsuit, or a payment made to avoid one, could therefore be compromised without the king. The test offered is the absence of damage, and the treatise supplies no procedure for establishing it and no case in which it was applied.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-transaccion-y-particion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "The exception, and what it was about. §35 turns to partition: \"Pero si no estuviessemos en terminos de transaccion, ò compromisso, sino de alguna particion, ò division, que se huviesse de hacer entre dos Feudatarios, ò Encomenderos, para quitar algunas dudas, ò diferencias, que se huviessen ofrecido en razon de los terminos, y lindes de los Feudos, ò de los Pueblos, y Repartimientos de los Indios, ò sobre la quenta, y tassa de los tributarios de ellos, en tales casos seguramente podriamos afirmar, que como cessasse toda sospecha de fraude, ò colusion, perjudicaría esta division assi al Señor directo del Feudo, ò Encomienda, como à los successores de los dividentes, y estarian obligados à passar por ella.\" The disputes contemplated are of two kinds: the boundaries of Indian towns and assignments, and the count and assessment of the people who paid tribute in them.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-transaccion-y-particion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "Why partition is not alienation. §35 gives the reason: \"Porque semejante particion, ò division, no se tiene por enagenacion; sino por una, como natural, y precisa designacion del Feudo, ò Encomienda concedida, hecha à efecto de que cada uno pueda saber, y sepa, lo que le pertenece, lo qual igualmente aprovecha, y se estiende, y obliga à qualquería de los successores\". Nothing leaves the grant; the grant is only described. The paragraph supports the doctrine from the texts of the common law, from express texts in the law of feuds and their glossators, and from the author's own earlier treatment \"en el Cap. XIII. de este Libro\", a chapter this corpus has not opened.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-transaccion-y-particion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "The safeguard, and its limit. The one condition §35 attaches is \"como cessasse toda sospecha de fraude, ò colusion\" — the division binds the crown and the successors only if no fraud or collusion between the two holders is suspected. That is a real protection of the absent parties and it is the only one in the paragraph. It runs to the direct lord and to the successors in the grant. It does not run to the towns whose boundaries and tribute rolls are the subject matter, who are not parties to the division, are not said to be heard in it, and have no remedy named against it. That the safeguard protects the two absent classes named and no third is this corpus's reading of the paragraph's silence rather than a statement on the page, and the claim is set at 0.85 for that reason.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-transaccion-y-particion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "What this entry establishes and what it does not. It establishes that the standard treatise on the law of the Indies held that holders of encomiendas could make no transaction or compromise touching them that harmed or bound the king or the men called to succeed, without royal licence, approval or the other requisites usual in transactions over entails, feuds and emphyteusis; that it allowed the contrary where the point was genuinely doubtful or something was given to avoid a suit; and that it excepted outright the partition of boundaries between two holders, and the settling of the count and assessment of their tributaries, as a designation rather than an alienation, binding on the crown and on the successors provided no fraud or collusion was suspected. It establishes nothing about practice: no partition, no boundary, no town, no viceroy and no date appears in the range, and no cédula or law of the Recopilación is cited in either paragraph. The people of the towns appear in these two paragraphs twice, once as the boundaries being drawn and once as \"la quenta, y tassa de los tributarios\", and the interests the rule is built to protect are the king's revenue and the next holder's expectation.",
      "sources": [
        "solorzano-politica-indiana-1736-transaccion-y-particion"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [],
  "faqs": [],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "industry_observation",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": false,
  "winning_edge": "Writing on the encomienda in English says almost nothing about how disputes between two holders were settled, and nothing at all about the one case in which two of them could bind the crown by private agreement. The paragraph that states it has not been quoted: a partition of the boundaries of Indian towns, or of the count and assessment of their tributaries, is \"no se tiene por enagenacion; sino por una, como natural, y precisa designacion del Feudo, ò Encomienda concedida\", and it binds the direct lord and the successors alike. The entry prints the rule and the exception in the author's own words, shows that the chapter's title poses this as its second question and that its printed SUMARIO answers it in two heads, and puts the cost beside the doctrine rather than after it: the only condition on the division is the absence of fraud between the two holders, the interests it is built to protect are the king's and the next grantee's, and the towns whose limits and tribute rolls are being drawn are the subject of the agreement and not a party to it.",
  "confidence": 0.85,
  "last_verified": "2026-09-26",
  "media": [],
  "x": {},
  "canonical_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/transaccion-y-particion-de-las-encomiendas",
  "api_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/api/k/transaccion-y-particion-de-las-encomiendas.json",
  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Settling and dividing an encomienda: the one boundary dispute two holders could compromise without the king",
    "description": "Holders of encomiendas could make no transaction or compromise that harmed or bound the king or the next man called to the grant, unless royal licence intervened. One case was carved out. Where two holders were dividing the boundaries of their Indian towns, or settling the count and assessment of the tributaries, the standard treatise holds the division good against crown and successors alike: it is not alienation but a designation of what each already holds.",
    "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/transaccion-y-particion-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, §§34-35 — transaction, compromise and the partition of an encomienda between two holders: at §34 the inference from the whole prohibition, that 'tampoco podrán los possedores de las Encomiendas, hacer transaccion, ni compromisso alguno en razon de ellas, que dañe, ù obligue al Rey, ò à sus successores; sino es que intervenga, ò se siga licencia, ò aprobacion Real, ù otros requisitos, que en las transacciones, que se hacen sobre bienes de Mayorazgos, Feudos, ò Emphiteusis deben, y suelen intervenir conforme à Derecho', this being 'certissimo, quando de tales conciertos, transacciones, ò compromissos se siguiesse algun daño al Feudo, Mayorazgo, ò Emphiteusi, ò à los llamados à la succession de ellos', while the contrary could be defended where the transaction is made 'sobre punto, y pleyto dudoso, ò dando algo por escusarle, ò por via de amigable composicion', as a decisión Avenoniense resolves of feuds and some texts of benefices illustrated by Abad Panormitano; and at §35 the exception for partition, that if the case is not of transaction or compromise 'sino de alguna particion, ò division, que se huviesse de hacer entre dos Feudatarios, ò Encomenderos, para quitar algunas dudas, ò diferencias, que se huviessen ofrecido en razon de los terminos, y lindes de los Feudos, ò de los Pueblos, y Repartimientos de los Indios, ò sobre la quenta, y tassa de los tributarios de ellos, en tales casos seguramente podriamos afirmar, que como cessasse toda sospecha de fraude, ò colusion, perjudicaría esta division assi al Señor directo del Feudo, ò Encomienda, como à los successores de los dividentes, y estarian obligados à passar por ella', the reason being that 'semejante particion, ò division, no se tiene por enagenacion; sino por una, como natural, y precisa designacion del Feudo, ò Encomienda concedida, hecha à efecto de que cada uno pueda saber, y sepa, lo que le pertenece', with a back-reference to capítulo XIII of the same libro",
        "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=huEykw_YtzYC&pg=PA307"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Settling and dividing an encomienda: the one boundary dispute two holders could compromise without the king"
  }
}