CHAPTER 5 THE COLONIAL PERIOD IN MESOAMERICA 183Crown strategies for controlling and profiting from its empire were based on
maintaining strict monopolistic powers over the movement of goods and people be-
tween Spain and its colonies. Ideally, the colonies would provide raw materials as
well as ready markets for goods manufactured in Spain. The House of Trade (Casa
de Contratación) was created in 1503 to grant licenses to all ships and merchants
bound for the Indies, to monitor imports and exports, and to provide permits to all
passengers traveling to the New World.
The first years of Spanish colonial rule in the Mesoamerican region were marked
by power struggles over the spoils of victory. The Crown, always fearful that the de-
velopment of an aristocracy in the colonies would threaten its own power, actively
sought to create a highly centralized colonial government directly under its control.
But from the beginning of Spanish occupation, intense rivalries developed among
the many Spanish factions over control of the vast resources that the New World of-
fered, whether they be precious metals or Indian labor. Strong animosities existed be-
tween the Crown and the conquistadors, between Crown-appointed officials and
colonists, and between members of the clergy and colonists. Arguments raged over
the status of the native population: Were Indians to be treated as humans? Could
they be enslaved? The implementation of various laws intended to protect the Indi-
ans provoked outraged responses from colonists.
The most notorious example of this situation was the attempted implementation
of the New Laws of 1542 to 1543, a set of laws that had been heavily promoted by the
Dominican activist Bartolomé de Las Casas (see Chapter 4). These laws were intended
to end certain abuses against the native people. At the heart of the New Laws was a new
attempt by the Crown to regulate and ultimately to eliminate the encomiendasystem.
We have already seen that the encomiendasystem had originated in medieval
Spain and had been introduced in the Caribbean, where it was at least partially re-
sponsible for the demise of much of the native population there. On the Mesoamer-
ican mainland, as elsewhere, the encomiendasystem consisted of rewarding Spaniards
(initially the Conquistadors) for service to the king by “commending” or entrusting
to them the tribute and labor of a given group of Indians, usually the Indians of a spe-
cific town. The Spanish encomenderoswere charged with the Christianization of the In-
dians in return for their goods and labor. The merits of the encomiendasystem on
the mainland—after its disastrous effects in the Caribbean—were hotly debated, with
the Crown opposed to it on principle but grudgingly allowing Conquistadors to be
given encomiendasas rewards for their part in the conquest.
A few encomiendaswere granted to very high-ranking Indians, in recognition of
their status and in an attempt to pacify individuals who might otherwise pose a chal-
lenge to Spanish rule. For example, doña Isabel de Motecuhzoma was granted the
important town of Tlacopan (or Tacuba) in encomienda.She was the eldest surviving
child of the Aztec emperor Motecuhzoma with his principal wife. According to some
accounts, she was also the widow of Cuauhtemoc. The last of her three Spanish hus-
bands made a prolonged but ultimately unsuccessful effort to secure the perpetual
continuation of her encomiendarights for the couple’s descendants, on the grounds
that his wife was the legitimate heir of her father’s throne.