188 UNIT 2 COLONIAL MESOAMERICA
prices the cotton or wool needed to produce the textiles. Another variation of this
form of repartimientoconsisted of Spaniards’ providing raw materials (such as raw
cotton) to Indian weavers in return for the right to purchase the finished product,
and often the purchase price was well below market value.
Among the most disruptive of the Spanish institutions was the program of con-
gregaciónor reducción.These forced resettlement programs were instituted throughout
New Spain in the sixteenth century. They were intended to aid the clergy in “civiliz-
ing” previously dispersed native populations by congregating them into new, densely
populated villages where the activities of the natives could be more easily monitored.
In addition to providing their encomenderoswith goods and labor and providing
labor for repartimiento,native communities also were taxed through the colonial trib-
ute system. Indians, as vassals to the king, were required to pay annual tribute either
directly to the Crown or to their encomenderos.In the latter case, a portion of the trib-
ute collected by the encomenderowas paid to the king. Initially, tribute payments were
made in goods, but gradually payments in money replaced payments in goods. By the
mid–eighteenth century, payment in goods was made illegal.
We saw in Chapters 2 and 3 that at the time of Spanish contact, expansionist
powers like the Aztecs collected tribute from conquered regions. In fact, some of
the earliest colonial tribute assessments may well have been based on existing Aztec
tribute collection documents. But eventually the tribute demands of the Spaniards
were much more debilitating than pre-Hispanic tribute payments. The demographic
decline meant that there were fewer and fewer Indians, but reductions in tribute
payments usually lagged far behind population decline. In colonial documents we
find many examples of native communities requesting that they be excused from
tribute payments because they simply did not have the resources to pay.
In addition to the many abusive policies forced upon the Indians, many Span-
ish economic enterprises in colonial Mesoamerica affected the native populations.
Among the enterprises that would have the greatest impact on native societies were
mining, the hacienda system, and the textile factories or obrajes.
From the beginning, the Spaniards were obsessed with a desire to obtain gold and
silver, and by the mid–sixteenth century, large deposits of silver were being mined in
several areas of Mesoamerica, primarily in the north in the areas around Zacatecas,
Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, and Pachuca. Mining was one arena where the Crown
and the colonists were of one mind; no holds were barred to ensure that the mines
were as productive as possible. Beyond the wealth generated by the silver itself—
even after the king had received his fifth—fortunes also could be made by the en-
trepreneurs who provided the food and other goods for the mining camps. Labor for
the mines was provided largely by the Indian population, at first through repartimiento
labor and later through wage labor. Wages were good, but the risks were high, and
many natives lost their lives as they toiled in the unhealthy atmosphere of the mines.
With the gradual demise of the encomiendain many parts of Mesoamerica, Span-
ish access to large tracts of land shifted to outright ownership of landed estates called
haciendas. In less-populated areas, primarily in the north, haciendas were large and
focused primarily on livestock. In other areas they were often smaller and more di-