TRIBUTE AND LABOR IN THE SPANISH COLONIES 79
because “God created the Indians free and not sub-
ject.” Cortés, who had already assigned encomien-
das to himself and his comrades, did not enforce
the order. Backed by the strength and needs of his
hard-bitten soldiers, he argued so persuasively for
the encomienda system as necessary for the wel-
fare and security of the colony that the royal order
was revoked. Encomienda tribute and labor, sup-
plemented by slaves captured in war, continued to
be the main source of income for the colonists until
the middle of the sixteenth century.
THE NEW LAWS OF THE INDIES AND
THE ENCOMIENDA
Despite its retreat in the face of Cortés’s disobedience,
the crown renewed its efforts to bring indigenous
tribute and labor under royal control. Cautiously, it
moved to curb the power of the conquistadors. The
secondaudiencia (high court) of New Spain was es-
tablished in 1531–1532 after a stormy period of rule
by the fi rst “gangster” audiencia, which devoted it-
self to despoiling Cortés and mercilessly oppressing
the natives. Taking the fi rst steps in the regulation
of tribute and labor, the second audiencia moder-
ated the tribute paid by many indigenous towns,
provided for registration of tribute assessments, and
forbade, in principle, the use of natives as carriers
without their consent. The climax of royal interven-
tion came with proclamation of the New Laws of the
Indies (1542). These laws appeared to doom the en-
comienda. They prohibited the enslavement of na-
tive peoples, ordered the release of slaves to whom
legal title could not be proved, barred compulsory
personal service by indígenas, regulated tribute, and
declared that existing encomiendas were to lapse on
the death of the holder.
In Peru the New Laws provoked a great revolt,
and in New Spain they caused a storm of protest by
the encomenderos and a large part of the clergy.
Under this pressure the crown again retreated. The
laws forbidding indigenous slavery and forced la-
bor were reaffi rmed, but the right of inheritance
by the heir of an encomendero was recognized and
even extended by stages to a third, fourth, and some-
times even a fi fth life. Thereafter, or earlier in the
absence of an heir, the encomienda reverted to the
crown. In the natural course of events, the num-
ber of encomiendas steadily diminished and that of
crown towns increased.
By about 1560, the encomienda had been par-
tially “tamed.” Royal intervention had curbed the
power of the encomenderos and partially stabilized
the tribute and labor situation, at least in areas near
the colonial capitals. Tribute was now assessed in
most places by the audiencias, which made a con-
tinuing effort to adjust it to the fl uctuations of pop-
ulation and harvests on appeal from indigenous
villages. The institution of visita and cuenta was
employed to make such adjustments.The visita (in-
spection of an indigenous town) yielded information
concerning its resources or capacity to pay, which
was needed to determine its per capita quota. The
cuenta (count), made at the same time, gave the
number of tribute payers. About 1560, the annual
tribute paid to the king or to an encomendero by
each married tributary in New Spain was usually
one silver peso and four-fi fths of a bushel of maize
or its equivalent in other produce.
This mechanism of assessment and copious
protective legislation did not bring signifi cant or
enduring relief to indigenous peoples. Padding of
population counts and other abuses by encomende-
ros and other interested parties were common. More
important, recounts and reassessments consistently
lagged behind the rapidly shrinking number of trib-
ute payers, with the result that the survivors had to
bear the tribute burdens of those who had died or
fl ed. In addition, after Philip II (1556) ascended the
throne, the dominant motive of Spain’s policy be-
came the increase of royal revenues to relieve the
crown’s desperate fi nancial crisis. Native groups
who were hitherto exempt from tribute lost their
favored status, and the tribute quota was progres-
sively raised. As a result of these measures and the
gradual reversion of encomiendas to the crown, the
amount of royal tribute collected annually in New
Spain rose from about 100,000 pesos to well over
1 million pesos between 1550 and the close of the
eighteenth century. (These fi gures do not take into
account the impact on the tribute’s value of the con-
siderable rise in prices during the same period.)
For the colonists, however, the encomienda
steadily declined in economic value. They lost the
right to demand labor from their tributaries (1549),
and they also lost their fi ght to make the encomienda