Page "Encomienda" Paragraph 15

The encomienda system was succeeded by the crown-managed repartimiento and the hacienda, or large landed estates, in which laborers were directly employed by the hacienda owners.

Like the encomienda, the new repartimento did not include the attribution of land to anyone, only the allotment of native workers.

But they were directly allotted to the Crown, who, through a local crown official, would assign them to work for settlers for a set period of time, usually several weeks.

The repartimiento was an attempt " to reduce the abuses of forced labour.

" As the number of natives declined and mining activities were replaced by agricultural activities in the seventeenth century, the hacienda arose because land ownership became more profitable than acquisition of labor force.