{
  "id": "tributos-vacos-y-el-tercio-de-las-encomiendas",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Tributos vacos and the tercio of the encomiendas: the close of Recopilación libro VIII título IX, where the crown takes a third of every Peruvian encomienda in perpetuity and admits its viceroys had been giving the rest away",
  "summary": "The last five laws of libro VIII, título IX of the Recopilación cover what the crown drew from the encomienda system itself: a third of every Peruvian encomienda worth over eight hundred ducats, perpetuated in 1637; tribute of vacant repartimientos; and the income of encomenderos whose confirmation was refused. Ley xxij states that the viceroys had distributed vacant tribute \"con larga mano\". Folios 478-480 of the 1791 impression.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "colonial-law",
    "law-of-the-indies",
    "legislation",
    "legal-history",
    "recopilacion",
    "governance",
    "taxation",
    "public-finance",
    "real-hacienda",
    "economic-history",
    "encomienda",
    "accountability",
    "indigenous-peoples",
    "spanish-empire",
    "peru",
    "new-spain",
    "americas",
    "seventeenth-century"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "recopilacion-de-leyes-de-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "tributos-de-indios-de-la-corona-real"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "encomienda"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "modos-de-acabarse-las-encomiendas"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "tercia-parte-de-las-encomiendas-del-peru"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "citacion-y-privacion-de-encomiendas-por-ausencia"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "tribunales-de-cuentas-de-las-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "juicio-de-residencia"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "tributos-y-tasas-de-los-indios"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "tesoros-guacas-y-rescates-en-la-recopilacion"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "What were \"tributos vacos\" in the Spanish Indies?",
    "Did the Spanish crown take a share of encomienda income in Peru?",
    "What happened to an encomienda's tribute while it was vacant?",
    "Could a viceroy of Peru spend vacant tribute on pensions and alms?",
    "What did the Recopilación do about encomenderos who never obtained royal confirmation?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "The título that governs the tribute of crown Indian towns ends with five laws on a different subject, and its own heading says so: \"DE LOS TRIBUTOS DE INDIOS, PUESTOS EN LA Corona Real, y otros, procedidos de vacantes de Encomiendas.\" In the fourth impression of 1791 the first nineteen laws of libro VIII título IX are the crown tribute regime and are carried separately by this corpus; leyes xx to xxiiij, from the foot of the left column of folio 478 to the head of folio 480, are about what the crown drew from the encomienda system itself. The título then closes with one cross-reference, \"Que los tributos se rematen, y cobren conforme á las leyes 28. y 63. tít. 5. lib. 6.\", immediately above the heading TÍTULO DIEZ. The law numbering was read at band magnification and checked against its neighbours in sequence.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-viii-titulo-ix-tributos-vacos"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "The first of them makes a wartime expedient permanent and says so in terms. Ley xx, \"Que siempre se cobre el tercio de las Encomiendas de las que rentaren mas de ochocientos ducados\" (Philip IV at Madrid, 11 February 1637), recites that the third of the encomiendas in the viceroy of Peru's gift \"ha muchos años que entra en nuestras Caxas Reales para su desempeño\", and then: \"y en caso, que estén, ó no desempeñadas, se ha de cobrar siempre, y la renta, que montare, declaramos que ha de quedar perpetuada en nuestras Caxas, con que las situaciones (si hubiere algunas sobre ellas) se acabarán con el transcurso del tiempo.\" A charge raised to clear a debt is declared perpetual in the same sentence that concedes the debt may already be cleared.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-viii-titulo-ix-tributos-vacos"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The same law's second half is a concession to the encomenderos of Peru, and it is stated as a response to their deserts. \"Y porque los naturales de aquellas Provincias reconozcan quanto deseamos, que consigan el premio de sus méritos\", Philip IV orders the viceroys of Peru to grant out all repartimientos and encomiendas now or hereafter vacant \"solo con enterar el tercio en las Caxas, sin reservar, ni suspender de repartimientos, ó Encomiendas otra ninguna parte\" — that is, the third and nothing further may be withheld — and fixes the threshold: the deduction applies only to grants yielding more than eight hundred ducats. In this law \"los naturales de aquellas Provincias\" means the Spanish-descended holders of encomiendas in Peru, not the Indians who paid the tribute; the merits rewarded are theirs.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-viii-titulo-ix-tributos-vacos"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "Vacant tribute goes to the treasury by a short rule with a named guardian. Ley xxj, \"Que los tributos vacos se pongan en las Caxas Reales, y en su distribucion haya buena cuenta\" (Philip III at Madrid, 4 June 1614), reads in its entirety: \"QUando vacare algun repartimiento de Indios, en el ínterin, que se vuelve á encomendar, se entren en nuestra Caxa Real los tributos, que montare, y los Fiscales de nuestras Reales Audiencias tengan á su cuidado procurar, que así se guarde, y cumpla, y que haya la buena cuenta, y razon, que conviene en la distribucion de estos tributos, y hagan guardar nuestras órdenes.\" The officer charged with enforcing it is the audiencia's fiscal, not the treasury officials who hold the money.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-viii-titulo-ix-tributos-vacos"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "The most revealing law in the group is the crown's description of what its own viceroys had been doing with that money. Ley xxij (Philip IV at Monzón, 8 March 1626) recites that the vacant tribute of the encomiendas of the Indies is property of the crown like the rest, \"han acostumbrado los Vireyes distribuirla con larga mano, y librarla por sus decretos, y provisiones, á título de hacer limosnas á diferentes personas, dar ayudas de costa, y para obras, y otros gastos, que se pudieran excusar, en que han consumido muy grandes cantidades de hacienda\". The sanction named is personal and runs against the viceroy: those who disobey the standing orders \"se les hará cargo de residencia, y cobrará de sus bienes\", and the same against treasury officials who pay such warrants.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-viii-titulo-ix-tributos-vacos"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "The same law then concedes the point it was correcting. Its closing sentence reads: \"y si bien los Vireyes no están obligados á dar cuenta de lo que se gastare de tributos vacos á nuestros Oficiales, ni á los Tribunales de Cuentas, todavía la han de tener, y así lo mandamos, para que la dén quando fuere nuestra voluntad de pedirla, y saber en que los han distribuido.\" The viceroy is told to keep an account and to produce it when the king chooses to ask for one; the standing audit institutions of the Indies, the treasury officials and the Tribunales de Cuentas, are named only to say that he does not answer to them. That reading of the sentence is this corpus's construction of what the law leaves in place; the law states the exemption and does not explain it.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-viii-titulo-ix-tributos-vacos"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "A later law keeps the proceeds visible by keeping them separate. Ley xxiij, \"Que lo procedido de tributos vacos se remita con distincion\" (Philip IV at Zaragoza, 25 May 1645), reads in its entirety: \"MAndamos á los Oficiales de nuestra Real hacienda de todas las Provincias de las Indias, donde hubiere Encomiendas, y se causaren tributos vacos, que siempre y en todas ocasiones remitan lo que hubieren cobrado á estos Reynos, con la demas hacienda nuestra, por cuenta aparte, y separacion de la demas.\" The remedy for a fund that had been spent locally without account is to require it to cross the Atlantic under its own heading.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-viii-titulo-ix-tributos-vacos"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c8",
      "text": "The título closes on encomenderos who held without title. Ley xxiiij (Philip IV at Madrid, 18 July 1649) recites that the Council of the Indies had refused some confirmations of encomiendas because the term for presenting them had lapsed, and orders that \"toda la renta que hubieren gozado los Encomenderos sin título, ó confirmacion nuestra, se restituya á nuestras Caxas Reales\". Viceroys and governors are to suspend the enjoyment of encomiendas by holders who have not presented confirmation within the term and to provide that they restore \"los frutos, que hubieren gozado sin título legítimo\", reporting the proceedings to the Council. The obligation imposed is restitution of income already consumed, and the trigger is a lapsed deadline rather than any finding about how the holder treated the Indians.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-viii-titulo-ix-tributos-vacos"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c9",
      "text": "Read together, these five laws are a fiscal argument with the Indian towns absent from it. The money at issue is tribute paid by Indians, but every question the laws settle is a question between the crown, its viceroys and the encomenderos: who takes the third, who may spend the vacancy, who answers for the account, who restores income held without title. No law in this group asks what the town paid, whether the assessment should fall when an encomienda lapses, or whether anything is owed back to the payers; ley xxiiij orders restitution to the Caxas Reales and not to the towns whose tribute the unconfirmed holder had taken. That the group is silent on the payers is this corpus's reading of what the five leaves contain, and the silence is the point of the reading rather than an inference about intent.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-viii-titulo-ix-tributos-vacos"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    },
    {
      "id": "c10",
      "text": "What this entry establishes is the text of five printed laws in the 1791 fourth impression, read from three leaves, and not what was done under them. No treasury account of a tercio collected, no viceregal libramiento of vacant tribute, no residencia charge against a viceroy under ley xxij, no separate remittance under ley xxiij and no restitution by an unconfirmed encomendero under ley xxiiij appears anywhere in this corpus. The laws of libro VI título VIII to which ley xx refers, and the leyes 28 and 63 of libro VI título V named in the título's closing cross-reference, were not opened. Nothing here was collated against the 1681 first impression, which this corpus also holds, nor against any archival original of the cédulas the margins cite.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-viii-titulo-ix-tributos-vacos"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [],
  "faqs": [],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "industry_observation",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": true,
  "winning_edge": "The tercio of the Peruvian encomiendas is known to specialists through Solórzano's chapter on it, which this corpus already holds and which was not re-opened here. What happened next is printed in the code and is quoted almost nowhere: in 1637 Philip IV declared the charge perpetual in the same sentence in which he conceded the debt it was raised against might already be discharged, fixed its threshold at eight hundred ducats, and bought the holders' acquiescence by promising that nothing beyond the third would ever be withheld. Beside it stands something a fiscal history rarely gets in the crown's own words: a 1626 statement that the viceroys of the Indies had been distributing vacant Indian tribute \"con larga mano\" as alms, ayudas de costa and public works, followed by the concession that they owed no account of it to the treasury officials or to the Tribunales de Cuentas, only to the king if he asked. This entry prints the five laws with their dates, notes that the Indian towns whose tribute this was are absent from every question the laws settle — restitution under ley xxiiij runs to the Caxas Reales, not to them — and says explicitly that nothing in this corpus records a single peso of it collected, spent or restored.",
  "confidence": 0.85,
  "last_verified": "2026-10-09",
  "media": [],
  "x": {},
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  "jsonld": {
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    "name": "Tributos vacos and the tercio of the encomiendas: the close of Recopilación libro VIII título IX, where the crown takes a third of every Peruvian encomienda in perpetuity and admits its viceroys had been giving the rest away",
    "description": "The last five laws of libro VIII, título IX of the Recopilación cover what the crown drew from the encomienda system itself: a third of every Peruvian encomienda worth over eight hundred ducats, perpetuated in 1637; tribute of vacant repartimientos; and the income of encomenderos whose confirmation was refused. Ley xxij states that the viceroys had distributed vacant tribute \"con larga mano\". Folios 478-480 of the 1791 impression.",
    "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/tributos-vacos-y-el-tercio-de-las-encomiendas",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-10-09",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, libro VIII título IX 'De los Tributos de Indios, puestos en la Corona Real, y otros, procedidos de vacantes de Encomiendas' — leyes xx to xxiiij alone, the close of the título, running from the right-hand column of the printed folio 478 to the head of folio 480: ley xx 'Que siempre se cobre el tercio de las Encomiendas de las que rentaren mas de ochocientos ducados' (margin 'D. Felipe IIII en Madrid á 11 de Febrero de 1637'), whose text reads 'EL tercio de las Encomiendas, que son á cargo del Virey del Perú ha muchos años que entra en nuestras Caxas Reales para su desempeño: y en caso, que estén, ó no desempeñadas, se ha de cobrar siempre, y la renta, que montare, declaramos que ha de quedar perpetuada en nuestras Caxas, con que las situaciones (si hubiere algunas sobre ellas) se acabarán con el transcurso del tiempo. Y porque los naturales de aquellas Provincias reconozcan quanto deseamos, que consigan el premio de sus méritos, mandamos á los Vireyes del Perú, que encomienden todos los repartimientos, y Encomiendas, que ahora, y despues estuvieren vacos, y vacaren, solo con enterar el tercio en las Caxas, sin reservar, ni suspender de repartimientos, ó Encomiendas otra ninguna parte, y nuestros Oficiales guarden las leyes 38. y 39. tít. 8. lib. 6. y asimismo, que esta calidad de rebaxar, y reservar el tercio, se entienda en los repartimientos, y Encomiendas, que rentaren mas de ochocientos ducados, y con este cargo se encomienden'; ley xxj 'Que los tributos vacos se pongan en las Caxas Reales, y en su distribucion haya buena cuenta' (margin 'D. Felipe III allí á 4 de Junio de 1614'), whose whole text reads 'QUando vacare algun repartimiento de Indios, en el ínterin, que se vuelve á encomendar, se entren en nuestra Caxa Real los tributos, que montare, y los Fiscales de nuestras Reales Audiencias tengan á su cuidado procurar, que así se guarde, y cumpla, y que haya la buena cuenta, y razon, que conviene en la distribucion de estos tributos, y hagan guardar nuestras órdenes'; ley xxij 'Que los tributos vacos se distribuyan en lo ordenado, y los Vireyes dén cuenta de ellos quando se les mandare' (margin 'D. Felipe IIII en Monzon á 8 de Marzo de 1626'), which recites that the viceroys 'han acostumbrado distribuirla con larga mano, y librarla por sus decretos, y provisiones, á título de hacer limosnas á diferentes personas, dar ayudas de costa, y para obras, y otros gastos, que se pudieran excusar, en que han consumido muy grandes cantidades de hacienda', orders that the standing royal orders be obeyed first 'porque de lo contrario se les hará cargo de residencia, y cobrará de sus bienes', and concludes 'y si bien los Vireyes no están obligados á dar cuenta de lo que se gastare de tributos vacos á nuestros Oficiales, ni á los Tribunales de Cuentas, todavía la han de tener, y así lo mandamos, para que la dén quando fuere nuestra voluntad de pedirla, y saber en que los han distribuido'; ley xxiij 'Que lo procedido de tributos vacos se remita con distincion' (margin 'D. Felipe IIII en Zaragoza á 25 de Mayo de 1645'), whose whole text reads 'MAndamos á los Oficiales de nuestra Real hacienda de todas las Provincias de las Indias, donde hubiere Encomiendas, y se causaren tributos vacos, que siempre y en todas ocasiones remitan lo que hubieren cobrado á estos Reynos, con la demas hacienda nuestra, por cuenta aparte, y separacion de la demas'; and ley xxiiij 'Que la renta de las Encomiendas de que se hubiere denegado la confirmacion, por ser pasado el término, ó por otra qualquier causa se cobre, y entre en las Caxas Reales' (margin 'El mismo en Madrid á 18 de Julio de 1649'), which orders that 'toda la renta que hubieren gozado los Encomenderos sin título, ó confirmacion nuestra, se restituya á nuestras Caxas Reales', that the goce of encomiendas be suspended for holders who have not presented confirmation within the term, and that the Oficiales Reales each year remit to the Tesorero general of the Council what has entered the Caxas from this head, 'avisando la cantidad, que remiten, y de quales se ha cobrado por menor, con distincion, y claridad'; the título then closes at the head of folio 480 with the single cross-reference 'Que los tributos se rematen, y cobren conforme á las leyes 28. y 63. tít. 5. lib. 6.', immediately above the heading TÍTULO DIEZ",
        "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=Lt41mzCz8zEC&pg=PA478"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Tributos vacos and the tercio of the encomiendas: the close of Recopilación libro VIII título IX, where the crown takes a third of every Peruvian encomienda in perpetuity and admits its viceroys had been giving the rest away"
  }
}