Definition of "encomienda"

encomienda

noun
countable and uncountable, plural encomiendas
1. (uncountable) A system in Spain and, later and more extensively, in Spanish colonies, in which the right to exploit the labour of certain groups of subject people (initially, Muslims, during the Reconquista) was granted to conquerors; servitude within this system.
  Quotations
  Natives voluntarily coming forward and entering in encomienda were excused from paying tribute for ten years; and, in any event, for the first two years after congregating in pueblos but one half the usual tribute could be legally exacted.
  1886, Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft: History of Central America, 1886-1887, page 264
2. (countable) A permission to exploit labour within the encomienda system; an enterprise established to exploit such a permission.
  Quotations
  "Most of the owners of encomiendas have stocks in which they keep as prisoners the chiefs or freemen who do not supply the amount of tribute from their slaves when they themselves can not obtain it from the latter."
  1905, Prescott Ford Jernegan, A Short History of the Philippines, D. Appleton, page 84
  Whereas in the Caribbean it was not at all unheard of for merchants to hold encomiendas or municipal office, in the central areas one had to make a quick choice between appearing as a merchant or vying for an encomienda, for one could not do both.
  1963, James Lockhart, Stuart B. Schwartz, Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil, Cambridge University Press, page 96