Glossary

Definitions of terms used throughout CountryReports.

This glossary contains 1,144 terms used throughout CountryReports — political, economic, cultural, historical, and geographic terminology referenced in country profiles and articles. Terms are drawn from authoritative sources including the Library of Congress.

encomienda: A fiduciary grant of tribute collection rights over Indians conferred by the Spanish crown on individual colonists, who in turn undertook to maintain order and propagate Christianity.
encomienda(s): A system or legal arrangement adopted in 1503 whereby the Spanish crown assigned rights over native American labor and tribute in the Spanish American colonies to individual colonists (encomenderos) in return for protecting and Christianizing their subjects. However, most native Americans ended up as virtual slaves with no recognized rights. Not to be confused with the landed estate (latifundio--q.v.), the system was not ended until late in the eighteenth century.
Encomiendas: A Spanish, colonial system of land grants to Conquistadors that included rights to the use of Indian labor.
obrajes: Rudimentary textile factories set up throughout the highlands in the colonial period to pay the tribute owed to encomiendas (q.v.).