Encomenderos

Despite the relative success, even in the early years, of some nonencomenderos, the encomienda nonetheless was the dominant economic and political institution of early colonial society, mobilizing labor for Spanish enterprises as well as providing a direct source of income for those who received grants. Furthermore, encomenderos, since they often were among the wealthiest and best-established vecinos of a city, frequently served on town councils or in other official capacities and thus were in a good position to secure the land grants they wanted. Frey Nicolás de Ovando, during his term as governor of Hispaniola, was an encomendero and the largest landholder on the island (after King Ferdinand). He had extensive agricultural lands and holdings in livestock (mainly pigs) and was involved in mining and commercial imports. In fact Ovando implemented the royal cédula of 1503 authorizing the establishment of encomiendas (which actually had been in existence for some years). Probably most of the wealth that Ovando derived from his encomienda and other very profitable enterprises went to the Order of Alcántara or indirectly to the king (as grand master of the order) rather than to Ovando himself.^[35]

Some encomiendas yielded disappointingly little in the way of tribute or labor or were rendered virtually worthless by epidemics that decimated indigenous populations. Others were not located sufficiently near to productive mining or agricultural areas to be of much use, or the encomendero lacked the necessary access to capital or political favor to use the encomienda to best advantage. In the 1540s cacereño Alonso Hidalgo, vecino of Ciudad Real de Chiapas, complained of his poverty, saying he had received only a small encomienda from Pedro de Alvarado worth about 70 pesos.^[36] Some conquistadores and early settlers, victims of factionalism and favoritism, lost part or all of their encomiendas. Another cacereño, Diego Holguín, a vecino of Puebla de los Angeles in the 1530s and 1540s, lost part of his encomienda to Cortés's Marquesado. Nuño de Guzmán, first president of New Spain's audiencia, reassigned the remainder, leaving Holguín, a married man with two sons and two daughters, destitute.^[37]

Politics, factionalism, and civil war frequently resulted in the

loss or reassignment of encomiendas in Peru as well. Pedro Alonso Carrasco, a native of Zorita and conqueror and early settler of Cuzco, lost part of his encomienda of Carichane, which he had received from Juan Pizarro. Witnesses in the late 1550s said that Francisco Pizarro took Carrasco's grant because he was angry at him ("por estar mal con el") and because he thought Carrasco had too many Indians.^[38] A number of encomiendas changed hands during or after Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion. Lucas Martínez, who in 1547 became Gonzalo Pizarro's lieutenant governor for the region of Arequipa, lost his encomienda when the rebellion ended. Eventually he regained it, in 1557, allegedly bribing the new Viceroy, Cañete, and one of the judges of the audiencia to achieve that effect.^[39] Although Martínez, like many of Pizarro's supporters, in the end switched his support to the side of the royal representative, President Licenciado Pedro de la Gasca, he did not fare as well as other supporters of Pizarro who did the same. Men like Lorenzo de Aldana and Gómez de Solís, nobles from Cáceres who played an active and important role in the rebellion, actually came out ahead, ending up with some of the best encomiendas in Peru.^[40]

An encomienda could yield a substantial income and serve as the basis for a range of economic activities. But because encomiendas were grants made and held at the discretion of officials (or whoever exercized effective authority), they were a much more uncertain basis for the accumulation of wealth and perpetuation of family status than the rents and properties held in Extremadura—hence the need to diversify and develop the private aspects of estates and enterprises. Early grants went to a variety of individuals, from artisans and miners to hidalgos and officials, but people with wealth, prestige, and good connections were most successful in securing and retaining good encomiendas. On the whole hidalgos probably did best in using and keeping their grants, but certainly they were not immune to the capriciousness of events or officials. Lorenzo de Ulloa, one of the few cacereños in Peru who managed to survive Gonzalo Pizarro's rebellion while avoiding real commitment to the rebel side, lost one-third of his encomienda (which had been worth 4000 pesos) in the 1550s when the viceroy transferred 1400 pesos to seven vecinos of the town of Jaen. He never was reinstated in this grant, but later he succeeded to the repartimiento left vacant at the death of a fellow cacereño, Lorenzo de Aldana.^[41]

The nature of the grants created other problems for their holders. An encomienda could not be held in absentia, although the encomendero could obtain permission for a short-term absence. Since encomenderos could not arrange to collect the income from their grants in absentia and could not legally sell their grants outright, the direct profits to be made from an encomienda only benefited the grantee who stayed in the Indies. There were, of course, some exceptions in both regards. Hernando Pizarro and his wife doña Francisca (the mestiza daughter of Francisco Pizarro) enjoyed the income from their encomiendas and mines in Peru to the end of their lives in Spain; but then the careers and circumstances of the Pizarro family in Peru in certain ways were quite atypical, just as in other ways they exemplified—if on a grander scale than most—the activities and occupations of many of their fellow countrymen.^[42]

The question of succession to the grants also caused problems. Normally a son succeeded to his father's encomienda, at least in the first generation. Thus Gonzalo de las Casas succeeded to the encomienda first granted to his father Francisco de las Casas; Maestre Manuel Tomás, a surgeon from Trujillo who accompanied Francisco de las Casas to Mexico, in 1547 transferred his encomienda of Tututepec to his son Diego Rodríguez de Orozco, who arrived in Mexico in 1536; and Juan de Hinojosa, another trujillano who shared an encomienda about 150 miles northeast of Mexico City and died in 1533, was succeeded by his son Francisco, who arrived from Spain in 1537.^[43] In each of these cases in the early years, the encomenderos were men who had started families in Spain and so had the appropriate heirs to succeed them. But the excitement, newness, and conflicts of the early years, in Peru especially, meant both high mortality rates and delays in establishing families in the New World. Lorenzo de Aldana had no legitimate heirs and apparently never married, so his encomienda went to Lorenzo de Ulloa, a fellow cacereño. Where there were no heirs, it was common for a grant to be assigned to someone from the same home town or region in Spain. Pedro de Valencia of Trujillo, the treasurer of Arequipa, in 1570 succeeded to the encomienda left vacant at the death of another trujillano, Captain Francisco de Chaves.^[44]

An encomendero's widow usually could succeed to a grant, but a woman was seldom permitted to remain single and retain an encomienda. As a result men often became encomenderos through

marriage to widows who held grants.^[45] This practice could create conflicts in the next generation, however, if there were children by more than one husband. And the custom of allowing widows to succeed but hastening them into marriages doubtless at times had less than desirable results for the women involved. Alonso Carrasco of Zorita succeeded to his uncle Francisco Lobo's encomienda in the valley of Jayanca and married Lobo's widow, doña Isabel Palomino. Lobo had made Carrasco his heir in his will of 1551, and witnesses stated that Lobo had treated Carrasco like a son, giving him the run of his estate:

Alonso Carrasco commanded all the household . . . and his Indians, and everyone obeyed him, and he spent and distributed the goods and tributes of Francisco Lobo, and in everything he acted as if it were his, the same as Francisco Lobo himself could do.

Lobo's widow's feelings for Carrasco might not have been so fond; by the mid-1570s Carrasco was dead, allegedly at the hand of his wife, who poisoned his soup.^[46]

Problems over succession and assignment of grants generated endless litigation that could involve officials who acted not only in their official capacity but in defense of their private interests as well; Pedro Alonso Carrasco tried to reclaim part of his grant from the son of the governor Licenciado Vaca de Castro.^[47] Again, because of a high rate of mortality and considerable mobility, a series of individuals might succeed to a grant in a rather short period of time, fomenting legal chaos, especially since individuals who probably did not have the authority to assign grants often did so in the early years.

The acrimonious suit between the aforementioned Alonso Carrasco of Zorita and Alvaro Pizarro de la Rua of Trujillo arose from precisely those kinds of circumstances and was unusual only in that the customary solidarity of two men from the same "tierra"—they had many friends and even relatives in common—broke down. Carrasco's uncle Francisco Lobo received half the repartimiento of Jayanca, to which Carrasco succeeded. The other half passed through the hands of a couple of men and to the daughter of the second, who apparently died young. Since the holders of that half had never taken over administration very effectively, Lobo and Carrasco allegedly had expanded their part at the expense of the other. So when Alonso

Pizarro de la rua was assigned half of Jayanca in 1566, probably as a reward for helping to put down the rebellion of Francisco Hernández Girón, he discovered that his share was of little value. Attempts to negotiate with Carrasco failed, and Alonso Pizarro's representatives were unable to contact Carrasco's wife, doña Isabel Palomino, who they claimed Carrasco had "very shut up and hidden," unable to leave the house; nor could a notary enter. Two long-time residents and early conquerors—Diego de Trujillo and Pedro Alonso Carrasco (the former from Trujillo, the latter from Zorita)—testified in 1570 in Alonso Carrasco's probanza; and several other trujillanos—Diego Pizarro de Olmos, Captain Francisco de Olmos, and the surgeon Licenciado Juan Alvarez—gave testimony for Alonso Pizarro de la Rua. Carrasco's mayordomo and business partner, Alonso de Fuentes, claimed he was a friend of both parties, and Juan de Valverde Pizarro, a second cousin of Alonso Pizarro de la Rua, was the man who testified regarding the key position Alonso Carrasco played in Francisco Lobo's establishment.^[48]

Lucas Martínez Vegaso

The activities and often complex business affairs of Lucas Martínez of Trujillo provide a good illustration of how an early encomendero-entrepreneur operated. Martínez's long-time association with partner and fellow Cajamarca veteran Alonso Ruiz, who returned to Trujillo to marry Martínez's sister Isabel, and his connections with other people from Trujillo illustrate how the maintenance of ties to home and family put a particular stamp on the organization and operation of an early Spanish American establishment.

Martínez figured among the group of young recruits from Trujillo who accompanied Francisco Pizarro back to Peru in 1529. He was about twenty-one years old when he received his share of the spoils of Cajamarca, and his companion and business partner Alonso Ruiz was perhaps a year or two younger. Ruiz was not a native of Trujillo; he may have grown up there, but he also could have been recruited by Pizarro elsewhere. Whatever his origins, he and Martínez formed an enduring partnership almost from the inception of their enterprise in Peru, selling horses and other provisions, lending money, and for ten years—until Ruiz's departure for Spain in 1540—holding and managing their property in common. They did, how-

ever, receive separate encomiendas in Arequipa.^[49] Despite their closeness and the similarity in age, Martínez was the dominant partner. He was informed and literate (Ruiz essentially was illiterate), and regardless of whether Martínez actually started out as a merchant, he had a talent for and knowledge of business affairs. He was a loyal Pizarrist and achieved some prominence in early Peru despite an undistinguished military record. A member of the Cuzco city council in the 1530s, he sat on the Arequipa council from the first year of its founding in 1539–1540; Ruiz in contrast scarcely appeared in a public capacity in Peru. Ruiz's encomienda was smaller than Martínez's encomienda of Tarapaca and Arica, one of the largest and most lucrative in the jurisdiction of Arequipa.

When Ruiz left for Spain in 1540 to marry Martínez's sister Isabel in Trujillo, the men divided up their property but did not terminate their partnership. Each of them put aside 2000 pesos for Isabel's dowry, and in addition Ruiz took to Spain over 20,000 pesos that belonged to both; the men gave each other their powers of attorney to administer properties and conduct transactions. Ruiz probably did not intend to return permanently to Spain, and three times he had his license to stay there extended.^[50] But in the 1550s he was on the Trujillo city council, and in 1558 he purchased señorío of the village of Madroñera, where Martínez may have had family connections. Over the years the two men in their parallel and connected lives rose considerably beyond their rather humble origins, and both added surnames to bolster their new status. The encomendero of Arequipa became Lucas Martínez Vegaso, and the lord of Madroñera Alonso Ruiz de Albornoz.

Lucas Martínez created an integrated and efficient operation in Peru, based on the exploitation of his silver mines at Tarapaca, his encomienda, and agricultural holdings. His tributes and farms yielded a standard range of products—maize, wheat, alpacas and llamas (for wool, meat, and transport), sheep and pigs, salted fish, poultry—which he used to supply his employees, slaves, and retainers or sold in Potosí or elsewhere. Of over 1200 fanegas of maize collected in 1565, for example, more than half the total was sold or exchanged for livestock, while 43 percent went to feed encomienda and mine workers. Martínez's ship was crucial to the operation, and after he recovered his encomienda in 1557, he had new boats built that linked Tarapaca to Arica, Callao, and other ports.^[51]

Martínez's will of 1566 declared that he held twenty black slaves, half of them working in the mines and half in his households in Arica and Lima, where he had gone to live in 1561. In addition to encomienda Indians, he had yanaconas (Indian dependents) working on his lands in Guaylacana, Tarapaca, and elsewhere.^[52] One of the most interesting aspects of Martínez's staffing arrangements for his encomienda and mining operations was his employment of a number of members of the Valencia family, natives of Trujillo and Madroñera who possibly were related to Lucas Martínez on his mother's side (his mother was Francisca de Valencia). Soon after his return to Trujillo, Alonso Ruiz sent two first cousins, Martín de Valencia and Pedro Alonso de Valencia, to Peru to work for Martínez; Martín worked in Arica and Pedro Alonso in Tarapaca. About ten years later Martín de Valencia's son Gonzalo also departed Trujillo to work for Lucas Martínez in Peru. One of Gonzalo's brothers also apparently went to work for Martínez in the mines.

The men of the Valencia family did fairly well working for Martínez, although they remained primarily his dependents and employees. In the mid-1540s Pedro Alonso was the encomendero's chief mayordomo, earning an annual salary of 600 pesos. Later Gonzalo de Valencia's salary would be higher, since he received 650 pesos for just seven months' work. Gonzalo's father Martín owned a farm where he had an Indian woman and a black slave working for him. But apparently none of them left Martínez's establishment. Gonzalo de Valencia and Pedro Alonso de Valencia's widow each received a bequest of 1000 pesos in Lucas's will of 1566. Martínez made Gonzalo the custodian of his property and directed him to take his things back to Spain.^[53]

Lucas Martínez's career in Peru provides a revealing picture of a man in transition between two worlds. He spent over thirty-five years—the greater part of his life—in Peru and took the fullest possible advantage of available opportunities to build up a flourishing and profitable enterprise. He apparently never visited home again and certainly did not plan to go back permanently, although he arranged for his friend and partner Alonso Ruiz to do so. Yet in a sense he never fully established himself in Peru, marrying a young woman only days before his death in April 1567 so that she could inherit the encomienda. Never having established a legitimate family, Martínez left no direct legal heirs. In the early years he did

have an Indian noble woman, doña Isabel Yupanqui, as his mistress, and he had children by a morisca woman named Beatriz (formerly a slave). One of these children might have been his son Francisco Martínez Vegaso, who held an encomienda in Chile in 1546.^[54] Martínez made his sisters Isabel and Lucía Martínez his universal heirs, and the executors of his will included Alonso Ruiz and Isable Martínez in Spain and Martín de Meneses (of Trujillo) and Diego Velázquez (a native of Jaraicejo and long-time retainer of Hernando Pizarro) in Peru.

Despite his success and extensive involvement in Peruvian affairs and society, Lucas Martínez, then, remained to the end of his life strongly oriented toward Trujillo and his family there, maintaining close relations with Alonso Ruiz, who acted as a sort of surrogate for Martínez in his own home town, and continuing to rely on his fellow trujillanos (and possible relatives) the Valencias to staff and manage his business enterprise. A further irony of Martínez's rather paradoxical—if not irreconcilable—allegiances lies in the fact that at least one of his brothers, Alonso García Vegaso, was in Peru. He left this brother and his illegitimate son Lucas Martínez Vegaso only modest bequests in his will and does not seem to have associated closely with them.^[55] Clearly Lucas much preferred Alonso Ruiz, and he chose to forge with him bonds of kinship and common origin—Alonso became his partner, then his brother-in-law and a trujillano—rather than rely on the ones already at hand.