[38] Ibid., 5–13–3. The periods of validity of cases appealed from the audiencias of Ultramar varied with the distance and the time necessary for the transmission of autos to the Council. The time assigned by the laws of the Indies was as follows: Chile, one and a half years, Tierra Firme, New Granada, Santo Domingo, New Spain, one year, and the Philippines, two years. This law was promulgated first on September 24, 1621, and again on March 30, 1629.
[39] Recopilación, 2–15–123 to 133.
[40] Ibid., 133 (1563). Helps (Spanish conquest, I, 102, 103–104) states that the repartimiento system was originated in 1496, from the requirement of Columbus that the natives of Hispaniola should pay him a certain quantity of gold as tribute. In view of the inability of the natives to meet the demands of the Spaniards in regard to the precious metal, “the villagers were ordered to make (and work) the farms in the Spanish settlements. This may be considered as the beginning of the system of repartimientos, or encomiendas, as they were afterwards called.”
In a subsequent chapter the same author tells of the difficulty which Ovando had in compelling the Indians to live among the Spaniards, to pay tribute and accept religious teaching. Ferdinand and Isabella, in a letter dated December 20, 1503, directed Ovando to compel the Indians to deal with the Spaniards, to work for wages, to go to mass, to be instructed in the faith, and further, that they should do all these things “as free persons, for so they are.” ... “Ovando adopted the following system,” says Helps; “he distributed Indians amongst the Castillians, giving to one man fifty, to another a hundred; with a deed that ran thus: ‘to you, such a one, is given an encomienda of so many Indians, with such a Cacique, and you are to teach them the things of our Holy Catholic Faith’. The word encomienda ... was a term belonging to the military orders, corresponding to our commandery or preceptory; and this term naturally enough came into use with the appointment, as governors in the Indies, of men, who held authority in those orders, such as Bobadilla and Ovando.” (See also Bancroft, History of Central America, I, 262.) “With respect to the implied condition of teaching the Indians ‘the Holy Catholic Faith’ it was no more attended to from the first than any formal clause in a deed, which is supposed by the parties concerned to be a mere formality.”
“We have now arrived,” continues Helps, “at the climax of the repartimiento system. That which Bobadilla did illegally, was now done with proper formalities on parchment: ... We may notice again that the first repartimientos made by Columbus ... apportioned to any Spaniard, whom he thought fit, such and such lands, to be worked by such a Cacique and his people—a very different procedure to giving men—a feudal system, not a system of slavery.”—Helps, Spanish conquest, I, 138–139.
[41] Recopilación, 2–15–129.
[42] Ibid., 127.
[43] Ibid., 5–15–181.
[44] Francisco de la Misa to the King, May 31, 1595, A. I. 67–1–29.
[45] In this and in other letters of officials in the Philippines we find the amount frequently referred to as 1000 pesos, although in the Recopilación (2–15–129 [1609]) the jurisdiction is fixed at 1000 ducats. According to law 181 (1589), the authority of the governor (the audiencia had been suppressed) was extended to cases of the same value.