Читать книгу Lost Worlds of 1863. Relocation and Removal of American Indians in the Central Rockies and the Greater Southwest онлайн

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As the Indian population declined and the price of labor increased, the state moved to reduce the number of encomenderos and colonists who had access to Indian labor and preserve ever scarce Indian labor for state and public projects. The name for this institution was taken from the earlier period when a share was an allocation or repartimiento. The repartimiento was in full force in central Mexico from about 1560 to 1620, while it continued to exist in Peru (known there as the mita) until the end of the colonial period. Under the repartimiento Indian laborers worked in the silver mines, built forts, roads, and buildings for the army and government, and did agricultural work and construction for the Church. Again, like the encomienda, repartimiento continued to exist in frontier areas of Mexico, especially around missions and presidios in northern Mexico and the borderlands, including Florida. Although repartimiento laborers were supposed to be paid a minimal wage, and their working hours were limited, institutional means of enforcement were weak and temporary workers were often unsatisfactory laborers. Thus the colonists tended to replace them with contract workers or personal servants and/or slaves.¹⁷