The Encomienda System in the villages of the Paez Province in the 17th Century

Abstract

This article studies the establishment of the encomienda system among the Paez population in the government of Popayán. Compared to other processes to introduce this form of control over the indigenous population in the American continent, the case of the encomienda system among the Paez presents some particular characteristics: first temporally, as it only became a reality in the 17th century; secondly, regarding its development. These particularities were the result of the indigenous resistance, as well as of a mobile and socio-politically disperse indigenous reality. Thus, the encomienda system associated with the process of subjugation of the Paez population was not uniform nor temporally neither spatially. In order to consolidate it, the joint action of multiple strategies and agents of the colonial power was necessary.