The second charge of the encomienda: the duty to teach and protect, and what had become of it by the 1640s
The encomienda was justified as an office: the encomendero was to be a patron and protector, charged with the instruction and defence of the Indians entrusted to him. A royal letter of 1555 says so in terms and adds that if he failed he must restore the tribute. The standard treatise then reports what happened: salaried priests took over the teaching, corregidores the protection, the encomenderos paid for both, and the reason given is that their own abuses had forced the change.
Why this wins its question: Almost everything written in English about the encomienda disposes of its obligations in a subordinate clause - "in exchange for protection and religious instruction" - and moves on, leaving a reader unable to tell whether the obligation was a formula or an enforceable term, or what became of it. This object goes to the chapter of the standard treatise that is devoted to exactly that question, and prints the documents: the royal letter to the Audiencia of Lima of 7 June 1555 in full, making the grant conditional on its own purpose and naming restitution of tribute and forfeiture as the consequence of failing it; the cédulas of 1532 and 1554 behind it; the rule of the first Council of Lima that put a salaried priest in every community of four hundred tributaries and created the doctrinero and the sínodo; the transfer of the protective duty to corregidores paid out of the same tribute; and the cédula of El Campillo of 22 May 1597 barring the encomendero's relatives from the doctrinas of his district so that kinship should not let them cover each other's excesses. It then prints what a defensive treatment would omit and a hostile one could not have invented: the crown jurist's own statement that the encomenderos' "insolencias, y mal proceder" and the "vexaciones, y agravios" they did to the Indians were the cause of the reform and the reason it was just that they pay for it; his prosecution of an encomendero for abusing the children of his encomienda; and his parenthesis that many, or all, of them cared more for more Indians than for the Indians they had.
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 chapter that carries the subject announces it in its own heading, and the second half of that heading is what makes the chapter unusual. Libro III, capítulo XXVI of Juan de Solórzano Pereira's Política Indiana is "DE LA SEGUNDA CARGA DE LAS Encomiendas, y Encomenderos, que es mirar por el bien espiritual, y temporal de los Indios: y de la forma en que oy se practica: y otras questiones de su materia". A chapter of doctrine that undertakes to report the form in which the duty was being performed at the time of writing is doing something most legal treatises do not.
The purpose stated for the institution is protective and it is stated first. At §1 "la segunda carga de los Encomenderos, y segun pienso, la primera en el concepto, y deseo de nuestros Catholicos Reyes, quando introduxeron las Encomiendas, fue dar en ellas à los Indios unos como Patronos, ò Protectores, que los recibiessen debaxo de su amparo, y defensa, y procurassen su enseñanza espiritual, y politica". The chapter's printed SUMARIO opens on the same point at head 1 - "El motivo de las Encomiendas fue para que los enseñassen" - and at head 6 draws the consequence the whole argument rests on, "Y por esso llevan los tributos".
Two cédulas are cited for the duty and the second attaches a remedy in both forums. At §2 a cédula of 30 March 1532 to the Audiencia of Mexico orders it to "reciban sobre el cumplimiento de esta carga, y obligacion particular juramento de los Encomenderos", and another of 10 March 1554 charges their consciences, warning that in the internal forum they "tendrán obligacion de restituir los tributos, que llevan de los Indios, si en esto anduvieren negligentes", and in the external "se procederá contra ellos justa, y juridicamente, hasta privarlos de las Encomiendas". Restitution of tribute for negligence, and forfeiture for it, are both in print by 1554 on this account.
The strongest document in the chapter is a royal letter printed in full because the author says he cannot leave it out, and it is worth giving at length. At §3 a letter written to the Audiencia of Lima on 7 June 1555 reads "Porque yà sabeis, que el origen de estas Encomiendas fue respetando siempre al bien de los Indios, para que fuessen doctrinados en las cosas de nuestra Santa Fé Catholica, y para que los Encomenderos tuviessen cargo de la tal Doctrina, y defensa de los Indios, que les están encomendados, para no los dexar maltratar en sus personas, ni haciendas, y los tuviessen en Encomienda, para que ningun agravio recibiessen, y con esta carga se les dexaron, y han dado siempre, y es cargo anexo à la Encomienda: de tal manera, que no cumpliendo, serian obligados à restituir, lo que llevan, y es legitima causa para les privar de las Encomiendas, &c." The grant is here conditional on its own purpose, in the crown's own words.
The authorities marshalled for the same proposition include the institution's most famous enemy, and the chapter names him without hostility. At §4 Matienzo, Acosta, "el Obispo de Chiapa" - Bartolomé de las Casas - Antonio de Herrera, Antonio de León and Bartolomé de Albornoz are all cited as affirming that this was one of the causes of instituting the encomiendas "y aun la potissima; y como el fundamento de las demas". The model invoked for the spiritual half is the godparent of the primitive church, the susceptor charged with instructing and confirming the newly baptised; for the temporal half, at §5, the patrons and protectors given to the poor and defenceless in other well-governed nations and particularly to those newly entering vassalage.
The obligation is then made a condition of conscience on the tribute, with a patristic precedent that fits the case exactly. At §9 the chapter follows José de Acosta in holding that the encomenderos are not secure in conscience in taking the tributes except by discharging this duty, and quotes "unas insignes palabras de S. Gregorio" written to the nobles of Sardinia, who had many rustics on their inherited estates and worked them without troubling about their instruction in the faith or turning them from their old errors and idolatries - asking them why, since those men work and pay for them, they do not equally discharge their own obligation to teach them.
The historical account of how the teaching duty was discharged begins by explaining why it fell on laymen at all. At §10 the care of the spiritual instruction of the Indians "fue en los principios mas estrecho, y obligatorio en los Encomenderos: porque los Indios eran muchos en numero, y muy pocos los Sacerdotes, y Religiosos, à quien se pudiesse encargar este Ministerio, que era mas propio suyo, especialmente no estando aun hechas Iglesias, Parroquias, ni Pueblos de Indios, ni erigidos, ni aun divididos los Obispados". The duty was an emergency arrangement in a church that did not yet have parishes.
The transfer of that duty to salaried clergy is dated to a conciliar rule and described with its financing. At §11, once matters were in better order it seemed more suitable that every community of four hundred tributaries should have its own priest to teach and administer the sacraments and to look after their good customs in civil life, "como lo dispuso el Concilio Limense I. Con lo qual estos se comenzaron à llamar Doctrineros, y los Encomenderos por la mayor parte se fueron aliviando de este cuidado, aunque gravados de pagar de los reditos de sus Encomiendas el salario, ò estipendio, que pareció bastante para los Curas, que vulgarmente llaman el Synodo". What remained to the encomendero was to pay the stipend and to watch how the doctrinero performed, reporting him to his prelate if he found him "remissos, y negligentes, torpes, y deshonestos, ò codiciosos, y esquilmadores de la lana de sus ovejas".
The protective duty went the same way, to a salaried royal officer, and the financing again came out of the encomendero's share. At §12 the ancient obligation to shelter and defend the Indians, to oppose anyone who wronged them and to keep them in justice and good order, remained in force in principle, but "aun de esto tampoco no tienen ya en el tiempo presente, que cuidar tanto", because corregidores and alcaldes mayores had been placed in almost every provincial head town to govern them and attend to all of it - "dandoles tambien por estos Oficios competente salario, que assimismo se rebaxa de las tassas de sus tributos ante todas cosas à los dichos Encomenderos".
The reason printed for making the encomenderos pay for their own replacement is the sentence a defensive account of the institution would cut, and it is the author's own. At §13 they could take no grievance from the reduction, since their duties had been reduced and so could their income be; "y tambien, porque pues los mismos Encomenderos con sus insolencias, y mal proceder, y las vexaciones, y agravios, que hacian à los Indios, à quienes debian defender, y amparar, fueron causa de estas mudanzas, y reformaciones en su govierno, fue justo, que sintiessen, y sufriessen esta diminucion en sus rentas, que se aplicó, como para remedio de sus daños, y tiranias". The word tiranías is the treatise's, not this entry's.
The duty was not formally extinguished by the transfer, and the way it was kept alive is a small piece of institutional design. At §15 the old clauses of teaching and defending the Indians are still put into the titles of the encomiendas and still sworn to, so that the encomenderos should understand that they are not wholly discharged of those cares but must do what they can - and at the least act as syndics and fiscals over the doctrineros and the corregidores if those do not proceed as they are obliged. An encomendero's residual office, on this account, was to be a watchdog over the two salaried officers who had taken his functions.
The conflict of interest in that arrangement was seen and legislated against. At §16 a cédula given at El Campillo on 22 May 1597 orders "que por ningun caso en las Doctrinas de los Indios se presenten Clerigos, ò Religiosos, que sean parientes de los Encomenderos de aquel Partido, en qualquier grado de consanguinidad, ò afinidad: porque el parentesco no ocasione, que se toleren, dissimulen, y passen sus excessos unos à otros", referred by the 1736 editor's margin to ley 33, título 6, libro 1 of the Recopilación; the same is ordered as to the relatives of governors, royal officials and ministers. The watchdog was not to be the priest's kinsman.
The chapter then turns the duty back on the officers who granted the encomiendas, and the argument is quoted because it states a standard of appointment. At §17, following Acosta, since encomenderos are given to the Indians to care for their doctrine and good customs and to shelter and defend them, those who nominate and provide must take great care that they be men of approved life and conscience; neither the encomendero who fails his obligation can make the fruits his own with a good conscience, nor can the viceroy or governor who named him discharge his, if, content to find him deserving for his forebears' services, he does not also inquire whether he is fit for the ministry - or whether he is giving the Indians a man who by his bad example will destroy them spiritually and temporally instead of instructing them, "quien los vexe, y ofenda, en lugar de ampararlos, y defenderlos, y trate solo de robarlos, y trasquilarlos, quando havia de procurar aumentarlos, y enriquecerlos". The comparison that closes it is sharp: if a corregidor serving two or three years is vetted for virtue, how much more the encomendero, "que se dá para siempre".
The author reports one case of his own, and it is the ugliest thing in the chapter. At §19 "lo qual ponderé Yo mucho en un grave pleyto, que se fulminó contra un miserable Encomendero, por decir se aprovechaba de los Indiezuelos de su Encomienda en mala parte, echandole toda la pena de la ley, que aun con ser tan grande, se debia exacerbar mas en este caso por sus calidades, y circunstancias: y por el contrario, minorando, quanto pude, la de los pacientes, cuya poca capacidad, y natural rendimiento se hacia menos culpables". A judge of the audiencia of Lima records prosecuting an encomendero for the sexual abuse of the children of his own encomienda, imposing the full statutory penalty and arguing it should be aggravated. That the children were themselves liable to punishment under that law is nowhere said in so many words; it follows from the phrase "minorando, quanto pude, la de los pacientes" - the penalty of the passive parties, which is what he says he lessened as far as he could, and on the ground of their little capacity. No date, no place and no name of any party is given, and no record of the case was consulted here.
The section closes with an admission of scale that no apologist would write. At §20 the author says he will always greatly wish the encomenderos to understand that this benefit is given them for the office of procuring the good of their Indians, and that the law ordains that whoever despises the office loses the benefit - "Y no cuiden tanto (como veo lo hacen muchos, ò todos) de que se les dén muchos Indios en Encomienda, ò de aumentar mas sus aprovechamientos, quanto de que estos miserables les consigan por todas vias". The parenthesis is the point: as I see many, or all, of them do.
What this entry establishes and what it does not. It establishes that Spanish law defined the encomienda as an office with a stated purpose, that the purpose was put in the titles and sworn to, that a royal letter of 1555 made the tribute conditional on performance and named restitution and forfeiture as the consequences of failure, that the teaching duty was transferred to salaried parish priests under a rule of the first Council of Lima and the protective duty to salaried corregidores, that both salaries were charged to the encomenderos, and that the reason the treatise gives for charging them is their own abuses. It establishes nothing about how widely the doctrina was actually provided, how many encomenderos paid the sínodo, how well the corregidores performed the protective duty that corregidor-de-indios shows them corrupting, or what happened in the one prosecution reported at §19. Every cédula in it is known here only as this book prints it.
The chapter closes, forty paragraphs later, on four asterisked digests added by the 1736 editor which state the same duty as compiled law and quantify it. They are added here from a later reading of the same volume and are the editor's words, not Solórzano's. At §54 "Los Encomenderos son obligados à reducir à los Indios à Pueblos, y edificarles Iglesia, y que esté decente: de suerte, que se pueda decir Missa en ella", referred to ley 2 título 9 and ley 4 título 3 of libro 6 of the Recopilación. At §55, a large town is to have sufficient ministers with a competent stipend, "pero si fueren tan cortas las Encomiendas, que no puedan mantener un Doctrinero, se juntarán dos, ò tres Encomenderos para tener, y pagar al Doctrinero, y los Obispos deben usar de su jurisdiccion sobre esto" (ley 3 título 3 libro 6). Small encomiendas were to be pooled to pay one priest, with the bishop given jurisdiction to make it happen.
The last two digests give the parish staffing and a rule of priority that is worth more than the rest of the paragraph. At §56 "En cada Pueblo, que sea grande, ha de haver dos, ò tres Cantores, y un Sacristán, y un Fiscal, que los junte, y convoque à la doctrina siendo el Pueblo de cien Indios, y si fuere de doscientos, ò mas, no ha de tener mas que dos Fiscales de edad de cinquenta años, y se manda, que los Curas no los ocupen fuera de su ministerio", on leyes 3 and 7 of título 3 libro 6 — the offices are held by Indians of the town, and the priest is forbidden to employ them on anything else. At §57 "Si sucediere, que la renta de la Encomienda no baste para pagar al Encomendero, y al Doctrinero su estipendio, este se ha de preferir al tributo del Encomendero", on ley 24 título 8 libro 6. Where the tribute would not stretch to both, the compiled law ranked the priest's stipend ahead of the grantee's own income. These are digests of the 1680 compilation made by the 1736 editor and were not checked against the Recopilación itself here; what they establish is what the compiled law was taken to say, not how any town was actually staffed or paid.