Restitution by will: the encomendero's legacy to his Indians treated as a debt, not a pious work
The last charge of the encomienda was to restore everything wrongly taken: to the injured Indians or their heirs, and failing them to their communities, churches and hospitals. Restitution was commonly made by legacy in a will, and the standard treatise holds such legacies "no merecen el nombre de Legados; sino de confession de la dicha deuda" — debt, not charity. A cédula of 1568 ordered them enforced; the same jurist then reads it down against the heirs.
Why this wins its question: Restitution is the part of the Spanish colonial debate that almost never survives into English summaries, which tend to stop at the theologians' arguments over whether the conquest was just. What happened next — a body of practical doctrine about who had to give back what, to whom, and through which instrument — is left out, so a reader has no idea that the chief vehicle was a clause in a will and that colonial courts heard suits about those clauses. This object goes to the nine paragraphs of the standard treatise devoted to it and prints them: the rule that restitution is owed to the injured Indians or their heirs in person and, where they cannot be identified, to their communities, churches and hospitals; the classification of such legacies as "paga, y satisfaccion de deuda precisa, y obligatoria" that "no merecen el nombre de Legados; sino de confession de la dicha deuda", with the consequences that follow from calling them debt; the hedged formula testators actually used, "por si algo les fuere à cargo, ò para descargo de mi conciencia"; and the royal cédula of 30 July 1568 ordering the Audiencia of the Nuevo Reyno de Granada to enforce testamentary suspensions of tribute against the successors. It then prints the counterpoint in the same voice: the author's admission that identifying the victims was usually impossible, and his own argument reading the 1568 cédula down so that the heirs need not pay, on the ground that an encomienda is a royal favour and not an inheritance.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
Restitution is put as the fifth and last of the obligations, and the authorities named for it are the ones a reader of this literature would expect. At §45 of libro III, capítulo XXVI of Juan de Solórzano Pereira's Política Indiana, "Lo quinto, y último, de lo que havemos dicho de las obligaciones de los Encomenderos para con sus Indios, y que deben restituirles todo lo mal llevado, se puede sacar resolucion de algunas questiones, que pia, y doctamente mueve el P. Acosta en esta materia, dando avisos à los Confessores, de como se han de haver en confessarlos, y en mandarles hacer las dichas restituciones", with Matienzo, the licenciate Zorita, Father Molina and "aora novissimamente un Moderno" added. The enforcement mechanism assumed throughout is the confessional, not a court.
The rule on who receives the restitution is stated first in its strict form and then in the form that mattered in practice. At §46 "Y todos vienen à resolver, que si hallan los mismos Indios, à quienes se hicieron los daños, y agravios, ò sus hijos, y herederos, à ellos en propia mano se les ha de hacer la restitucion. Pero si no se hallaren, ò fuere dificultoso de averiguar, quienes fueron los damnificados, lo que es lo mas ordinario, los han de aconsejar que repartan, ò que manden la cantidad, en que sintieren gravada su conciencia, à las Comunidades, Iglesias, ò Hospitales de los mismos Indios, ò à otras obras pias, que redunden en comun utilidad espiritual, ò temporal de todos ellos". The concession in "lo que es lo mas ordinario" is the treatise's own: identifying the individual victims was usually impossible.
The same paragraph reports that this actually happened, and the reporter says he judged the resulting suits. §46 closes "y assi vi, que lo hicieron muchos, estando Yo en el Perú, y fui Juez de algunos pleytos sobre estos Legados." This is testimony that restitution legacies to Indian communities, churches and hospitals were a live category of litigation in the Audiencia of Lima in the 1610s and 1620s. It is the author's own testimony about his own jurisdiction; no case, party, date or sum is named, and nothing read for this entry corroborates it.
The doctrinal move that gives the whole chapter its edge is the classification of such legacies as debt. At §48 the legacies made in satisfaction of the damage done to the Indians, or to discharge the conscience of the testator, "se deben tener no tanto por obra pia, como por paga, y satisfaccion de deuda precisa, y obligatoria, y que propiamente no merecen el nombre de Legados; sino de confession de la dicha deuda, como lo enseña Romano, y otros AA, infiriendo de aqui, que en ellos no se pueden poner condiciones, ni gravamenes". A legacy that is really an acknowledgement of a debt cannot be burdened with conditions by the man who leaves it. The consequence runs in the Indians' favour and is drawn from ordinary Roman-law doctrine, not from any special colonial privilege.
The formula the treatise says testators ordinarily used is quoted, and it is worth having because it is what a researcher would look for in an actual will. At §48 the case proposed is that of legacies wholly uncertain as to recipient, where "el Testador no confiessa totalmente su obligacion; sino motivando la manda, que hace à los Indios pone, como es ordinario, por causa de ella: por si algo les fuere à cargo, ò para descargo de mi conciencia. Las quales palabras no mudan, ni menoscaban la substancia del Legado, y su piedad". The hedged formula does not, on this reading, reduce the legacy to a mere gift.
A further consequence is drawn about how such legacies take effect, and it removes the heir's power to obstruct them. At §49 the author adds, with Gutiérrez and others, "que tales Legados no requieren aceptacion de heredero, aun mirado el Derecho Comun, y que es visto llegar el plazo, ò dia de su execucion desde la muerte, del que los dexa." The legacy falls due at the testator's death and does not wait on the heir's acceptance.
A royal cédula is then produced that treats these legacies as a matter of justice to be enforced by the audiencia, and its terms include the arrangement it was meant to protect. At §50 the whole discussion is "muy digno de notar para la declaracion, y practica de una Cedula Real de 30. de Julio del año de 1568. despachada para la Audiencia de el Nuevo Reyno de Granada, que manda: Que quando algunos Encomenderos en sus Testamentos mandaren, que por algun tiempo no se cobren tributos de sus Indios por descargo de sus conciencias, y que se encomienden à sus mugeres, è hijos, que han de succeder en ellos con essa condicion, hagan entero, y breve cumplimiento de Justicia: de manera, que se cumpla la voluntad de los Testadores." The editor's asterisked margin places it at ley 52, título 5, libro 6 of the Recopilación. The restitution contemplated is a suspension of tribute collection for a term, passed on as a condition of the succession.
The cédula is endorsed in one sentence and then cut back in two, and both halves belong in the record. At §51 "Porque esta Cedula, segun lo que déxo resuelto, es justissima, en quanto manda, sean amparados, y favorecidos estos Legados, que se hacen en satisfaccion de daños causados à los Indios." At §52, so far as it appears to say "Que los herederos tendrán obligacion de cumplir el Legado, que en ella se refiere, dexando de cobrar las rentas, que cayeren en su tiempo, me parece es muy dura; sino es que en otros bienes ayan quedado por herederos de el difunto, que les pone este precepto: Pues es llano, que en la Encomienda, en que no succeden por derecho hereditario; sino por merced, y providencia del Rey, y de la ley, no estarán obligados à cumplir tal gravamen, como ni à pagar otras deudas de sus antecessores". The same feature of the encomienda that limited the encomendero — that it was a royal favour and not property — is here turned to relieve his heirs of his restitution.
The cédula's operative words are then read narrowly, and the reading is the author's own construction of a royal order, not the order's text. At §53 "Y por esto la dicha Cedula, no obstante lo mas general de su narrativa, ciñó su decission, con solo decir: Hagais entero, y breve cumplimiento de Justicia: De manera, que podemos, y aun debemos entender, que no quiso precisar la paga, como lo decia la narrativa: porque esso era destruir todas las reglas del Derecho con una palabra; sino excitar los animos de los Jueces, à quien iba dirigida, para que breve, y legitimamente, y por los terminos, y disposiciones de él, despachassen semejantes negocios". A general clause in a royal cédula is treated as hortatory because the alternative would overturn the ordinary law of succession. This entry states that as the treatise's argument, made in a book written to expound the law by a minister of the government that issued the cédula; it is not a judgment and no case applying it was read here.
What this entry establishes and what it does not. It establishes that the duty to restore what had been wrongly taken from the Indians was treated in the standard treatise of Spanish colonial law as the last of the encomendero's obligations, enforced chiefly through confessors on the advice of Acosta, Matienzo, Zorita and Molina; that restitution was owed to the injured Indians or their heirs in person and, failing them, to their communities, churches, hospitals and other works for their common benefit; that legacies of this kind were classified as payment of a precise and obligatory debt rather than as pious works, so that they could carry no conditions, needed no acceptance by the heir and fell due at death; that a royal cédula of 30 July 1568 to the Audiencia of the Nuevo Reyno de Granada ordered the audiencia to give full and swift effect to such testamentary suspensions of tribute; and that the same treatise argued the heirs could not be bound by them because the encomienda passed by royal favour and not by inheritance. It establishes nothing about how much was ever restored, to whom, or whether any audiencia enforced the 1568 cédula: the cédula was not opened in its own register, no case is named, and the statement that many encomenderos in Peru did make such restitutions is the author's own recollection.