After the two lives: the rule that an encomienda reverted to the crown and could not be regranted to the last holder's son or widow
An encomienda ran for two lives. A cédula of 1552 ordered that when they were spent the Indians returned to the crown at once and were not to be granted again to the son, the daughter or the wife of the first holder. The reason given is that they should not come to look hereditary, so that the reward could reach everyone who deserved it. The Council refused confirmations on that ground in the Nuevo Reino de Granada - and the crown's own jurist closes the chapter arguing that the rule is wrong.
Why this wins its question: "Was the encomienda hereditary?" is a question most sources answer with a sentence - either that it was, which is wrong, or that it was limited to two lives, which is right and empty. This object prints the operative document and the argument around it: the cédula of Madrid of 5 April 1552 in its own words, ordering that after the succession is spent the Indians return to the royal crown at once and are not to be re-encomendados to another son, daughter or wife of the first holder; the reason given, that they should not seem to be perpetuated in one house and family when the reward was introduced so that all the deserving might reach it; the ecclesiastical parallel drawn for it; and a reported application, the Council of the Indies refusing to confirm regrants made by the president of the Nuevo Reino de Granada to the sons of the last holders and ordering him to reward them from other vacancies. It then prints what a triumphalist account of Spanish anti-perpetuity policy would suppress: the crown's own jurist spending the closing paragraph of the chapter arguing the other way, on natural law and on a Castilian statute, and the chapter's own summary conceding in four words that he "leaves the question in doubt".
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 rule is the last of the eleven prohibitions of the chapter and the author gives it that rank himself. In libro III, capítulo VI of Juan de Solórzano Pereira's Política Indiana, §71 reads "En onceno, y ultimo lugar, hállo otra prohibicion, que no es digna de menor advertencia, que las passadas: conviene à saber, que en la misma Encomienda, que vaca por muerte del padre, ò del marido, en cuyas personas fenecieron las dos vidas, por las quales se les havia concedido, no puedan volver à ser encomendados por nuevo titulo sus hijos, ò su muger". The bar is not on inheritance within the two lives, which the law allowed: it is on a fresh grant of the same Indians to the same family once the term was spent.
The document is quoted verbatim and it is short enough to give whole. At §72 "assi lo dispone expressamente una Cedula dada en Madrid à 5. de Abril del año de 1552, en estas palabras: E despues de acavada la succession, han de tornar los dichos Indios à la Corona Real luego, y no se han de tornar à encomendar à otro hijo, ni hija del dicho primer tenedor de los dichos Indios, ni à su muger." The 1736 editor's asterisked margin refers it to ley 2, título 10, libro 6 of the Recopilación. Two things in that sentence are worth separating: reversion is immediate and automatic, and the bar on regrant covers daughters and the widow as well as sons.
The reason given is an anti-perpetuity reason, and it is stated as a distributive one rather than a fiscal one. At §73 "parece, que la razon, en que pudo fundarse, es, que no pareciesse, que se perpetuaban en una casa, y familia estas Encomiendas; si no passando à otras, alcanzassen todos los benemeritos à gozar de estos premios: pues para este efecto se introduxeron". Antonio de León Pinelo is cited as agreeing, and the ecclesiastical parallel is drawn again: sons may not enter their fathers' benefices on a vacancy "porque no parezcan hereditarios".
The rule is reported as having been applied, and the report is the closest thing in the chapter to a record of practice. At §74 "pocos dias ha que vi, que en el Consejo se denegaron por esta causa las confirmaciones de ciertas Encomiendas, que el Presidente del Nuevo Reyno de Granada havia hecho de nuevo en hijos de sus ultimos possedores, aunque sus meritos, y servicios pedian ser remunerados, y assi se le ordenó, que lo hiciesse en otras vacantes". The president of the audiencia of the Nuevo Reino de Granada had regranted vacant encomiendas to the sons of the last holders; the Council refused to confirm them and told him to reward the sons out of other vacancies instead. No date, no name and no register entry is given for this in the source, and none was consulted here.
The author then argues against the rule he has just expounded, at length, and the objection is printed here because an entry that omitted it would be reporting only half of its own source. At §75 "mucho hay, que decir, y discurrir cerca de la justificacion, y conveniencia de este punto": in good reason, if the merits last, the reward given for them ought to last and be continued; and by natural law, common law and the law of the kingdom children have a greater claim to no goods than to those that were their fathers'. He cites a recopilated law of Castile under which the king must make donations and grants with the advice of his Council, except for the offices and grants that fall from father to legitimate son, which the king may give of his own will without any counsel - "como dando à entender, que và seguro de no poder errar, si se las continúa, por ser esto en sí tan corriente, y obligatorio".
He leaves the question open rather than resolving it, and the chapter's own printed SUMARIO says so in four words. Head 75 of the summary at the head of the chapter reads "Dexa en duda la question el Autor" - the author leaves the question in doubt - and §75 itself promises to return to it "en otro lugar". The standard treatise of the government of the Indies therefore closes its chapter on who may receive encomiendas by declining to endorse the anti-perpetuity rule it has just proved.
The chapter's last paragraph is not Solórzano's and is flagged as such, because it pulls in a different direction again. §76 carries the asterisk marking the additions of the 1736 editor, Francisco Ramiro de Valenzuela, and reports that these encomiendas resemble the feudal advocaciae treated by Erasmus Cokier, who held in his thirteenth question that feudal advocaciae belong to women and in his twelfth that they are "Iuris odiosae, & restringendae" - of odious law, and to be construed narrowly. That this bears on the question left open above - a grant construed narrowly being one whose reversion is favoured - is this entry's inference and not the editor's: he draws no conclusion about reversion, and the note stands at the foot of the chapter without comment. The name is printed "Erasmo CoKier" with an internal capital, and no work of his was opened here.
What this entry establishes and what it does not. It establishes that Spanish law fixed a term of two lives on the encomienda, that a cédula of 1552 made the reversion to the crown immediate and expressly barred a regrant to the son, daughter or widow of the first holder, that the reason printed for it is that the reward should circulate among all who deserved it rather than settle in one house, that the compilers of 1680 carried it into the Recopilación, and that the Council of the Indies is reported refusing confirmations on that ground. It establishes equally that the rule was contested from inside the government: the jurist who states it argues that merit which endures should carry a reward that endures, cites Castilian law on father-to-son succession against it, and expressly leaves the question in doubt. It establishes nothing about how often encomiendas in fact reverted, how often families obtained extensions of the term by separate grant, or how the rule interacted with the third and fourth lives that later legislation allowed in some provinces - none of which was read for this entry.