The residence duty as the compiled law left it: seven heads of the Recopilación, four of them about Chile, where a frontier war bought the only exemptions
Closing the chapter on the encomendero's duty to reside, the editor of the 1736 Política Indiana digests leyes 27 to 33 of título 9, libro 6 of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias in seven sentences. They cover licence to come to Spain, two years for a man fetching a wife, a bar on offices outside the place, Cartagena, and then Chile — a graduated penalty for the absent, and exemptions for those serving in the army of Arauco, at Yumbel and in the frontier forts.
Why this wins its question: The Recopilación de Leyes de Indias is cited constantly and read almost never, and título 9 of libro 6 — the title on encomenderos' obligations — is not available in English in any form a reader can scan. This object gives its residence provisions as a contemporary editor summarised them, law by law and number by number, in the print he added to the standard treatise, so a reader can see the whole rule at once instead of the single sentence about living in the province that every secondary account repeats. What emerges from reading the seven heads together is not in the secondary accounts at all: four of them are about one place, Chile, where an unfinished frontier war had forced the compiled law to bend, with a graduated penalty rather than automatic forfeiture, and with the only exemptions in the whole title granted for service in the army of Arauco, at Yumbel, in the frontier forts, or at Concepción and Chillán with a place and a wage. An exempted frontier soldier could even put a man in his place — the very substitution the same chapter denies to an encomendero who simply finds residence inconvenient. The object is equally clear about its own limits, in its own claims: these are a 1736 editor's one-sentence digests, not the laws, the laws were not opened, the source carries a reliability below the rest of the volume for that reason, and nothing on the page says whether any of it was enforced or what the Indians of these encomiendas got from it.
Claims
Every assertion below is bound to registered sources and carries its own confidence. Weight them; do not treat the page as uniformly authoritative.
The seven paragraphs used here are not the treatise's text and the object says so first, because everything else depends on it. Libro III, capítulo XXVII of Juan de Solórzano Pereira's Política Indiana closes at §42; the paragraphs numbered 43 to 49 that follow on page 388 of the 1736 impression are printed between asterisks, the mark this edition's editor, the Licenciado Francisco Ramiro de Valenzuela, uses throughout for his own additions. Each compresses one law of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias into a sentence and gives its number. They are a reliable guide to what título 9 of libro 6 contains and a poor guide to how it is worded, and no law was opened in any printing of the Recopilación for this entry.
The first head is the hardest, and it is about the voyage home. §43: "No se dá licencia à Encomenderos para venir à España; si no fuere con muy gran causa. L. 27. tit. 9. lib. 6. Recopil." The default for a man holding an encomienda was that he did not go back, and only a very great cause opened the door.
The one standing exception to that is a family one, and it is bounded by a term and a bond. §44: "A los casados, ù desposados en España se les conceden dos años contados desde el dia que partieron del ultimo Puerto para venir por sus mugeres, ò esposas, dando fianza, de que volverán los frutos, que percibieren los dos años. L. 28. tit. 9. lib. 6. Recop." A man married or betrothed in Spain had two years from his departure from the last port to go and fetch his wife, on security that he would return the income he drew meanwhile. The clock runs from the port, not from arrival, and the income of the two years is not forfeited but restored, which is a different and milder device than deprivation.
The third head closes an evasion that the crown's own appointments would otherwise have created, and it names its purpose. §45: "Los Encomenderos no sean nombrados en Oficios; ni en Capitanias fuera del Lugar, porque no falten à la residencia. L. 29. tit. 9. lib. 6. Recop." Royal service elsewhere could not be used to take a man off his encomienda, because the appointment itself was barred. The rule is aimed at the appointing authority rather than at the encomendero.
One head carries no paragraph number in the body and is given here as it stands, between §45 and §46: "Los Encomenderos de la Provincia de Cartagena cumplen con residir en Cartagena. L. 31. tit. 9. lib. 6. Recopil." A single city satisfied the duty for a whole province, which is the compiled law conceding that residence in the province could not always mean residence among the Indians of the grant. The head is unnumbered in this printing and is cited that way here rather than given a number it does not have.
Chile takes four of the seven heads, and the first of them carries the only graduated penalty in the digest. §46, quoted as printed: "Todos los Encomenderos de la otra parte de los de la Cordillera de Chile, y todos los del Reyno de Chile deben vivir en las Ciudades, donde son vecinos, y si faltáren un año se le debe quitar la renta de aquel año, y si faltan dos años se le quita la Encomienda. L. 32. tit. 9. lib. 6. Recop." One year absent costs that year's income; two years cost the grant. The opening phrase reads awkwardly in this printing and its evident sense — those on the far side of the cordillera as well as those in the kingdom of Chile itself — is confirmed by the two exemptions that follow, which are for the vecinos of Cuyo, the district east of the Andes then under the government of Chile.
The exemptions are military and they are specific to named places on the Araucanian frontier. §47: "Se exceptúan los vecinos de Cuyo, que estuvieren sirviendo en el Exercito de Arauco, y Yumbel, ò en algun Fuerte de aquellas Fronteras, y podrán poner personas en su lugar. Alli mismo." Service in the field army or in a frontier fort excused residence, and — this is the part worth noticing — the exempted man could put a person in his place, which is the substitution the same chapter refuses in general terms to encomenderos who merely find residence inconvenient.
A second exemption is drawn on the same frontier and turns on being on the payroll. §48: "Tambien se exceptúan, los que sirvieren en la Concepcion, ò Chilan con plaza, y sueldo: y tambien se exceptúan los vecinos de Cuyo, si son necessarios en la Guerra de Chile. Alli mismo." Garrison service at Concepción or Chillán counted only where the man held a place and a wage, which is a test of real service rather than of nominal enrolment; and the vecinos of Cuyo were excused whenever the war required them.
The last head moves the whole obligation to the capital and attaches two conditions to it. §49: "Despues se mandò, que asistan en Santiago de Chile, y tengan Escudero, y cantidad de ganado en la Encomienda. L. 33. tit. 9. lib. 6. Recop." A later order required the holders to attend at Santiago and to keep an escudero and a quantity of cattle on the encomienda. Residence in the capital is thus combined with an armed retainer and a stock left on the ground, which is the residence duty converted into a military and productive charge and a different bargain from the one the chapter began with.
Read together the seven heads show what the compiled law was actually trying to buy, and the shape is worth stating once. Four of the seven concern one war zone; the penalties are graduated rather than automatic; every exemption granted is granted for military service and none for the holder's convenience; and the two general heads that are not about Chile close off the two routes by which a holder could lawfully be elsewhere, a licence to Spain and an appointment to office. The digest is silent on the other side of the arrangement throughout: not one of its seven sentences says anything about the Indians of these encomiendas, what they owed, or what residence was supposed to be worth to them.
What this entry establishes and what it does not. It establishes what the editor of the 1736 Política Indiana reported leyes 27, 28, 29, 31, 32 and 33 of título 9, libro 6 of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias to contain on the residence of encomenderos, and gives his sentences verbatim with the law number he assigns to each. It does not establish the wording of any of those laws: none was opened in any printing of the Recopilación, and a digest that compresses a law into a sentence is evidence of its substance and not of its text. It does not establish that the rules were enforced; no case, register or account is cited on this page, and the same chapter records at §39 the author's own view that a related order was everywhere badly kept. It gives no dates: the digest numbers the laws and does not date them, and the "Despues" of §49 is not tied to a year. The reliability figure carried by the source for this entry is set below that used for the body of the volume for exactly this reason.