encomenderos

encomenderos
 

Recienmente fui a visitar México. En el museo de arquiologia en la capital, vi que en lugar de usar la palabra conquistador (los españoles apodaron México en el el siglo 16), usaron la palabra encomendero. Es interesante porque de verdad los españoles trajeron una gran encomienda (tesoro) a su familia real en Madrid.

Have any of you heard the term encomendero before? Changing the word
from conquistador to encomendero certainly helps you look at this historical event differently.

I have never heard "encomienda" as treasure, but as a patronage.
You can see it in tomisimo's dictionary http://www.tomisimo.org/diccionario/...nol/encomienda

saludos :D

I believe they were called encomenderos because the Spanish crown se les encomendaba a los indígenas y tierras de las américas. You could probably think of it as a type of feudalism.

encomienda
 

I was under the impression that an encomienda was a request to bring back. Something like "Cortés, cuando vuelvas traigame oro mucho oro." dijo Fernando.
"Bueno rey, te traigo esa encomienda y mas.", dijo Hernan.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I am not sure I understand the term encomienda,
but when I saw the term encomendero I got the image of bees (metaphorically the conquistadores) bringing pollen back to the hive(the proverbial familia real). I saw it as a political statement using the term
encomendero in place of conquistador.

encomienda/encargo
 

I think I was confusing encomienda with encargo

Yes, encargo it's more apropiate.
Ellos nombran a los conquistadores no como conquistadores (que suena despectivo) sino como enviados del Rey para tutelar la zona.
Saludos :D

Historically, there were two ways of organization during the America's conquest by the Castillan Kingdom. One of them was the "reducción" in plural "reducciones", which were used by the religious to group and educate in the Catolicism and the occidental way of life to the indigenous population. It is what we can see in the film "The Mission". There the priests didn't used to teach Spanish to the native people, to prevent them to the contact with the Spaniards, because considered they were not very good christians. The second way of organization was the "encomienda", where an Spanish native ("encomendero") received some lands and a group of american native people to work there. He has the responsability of educate and feed the people under his command (the name comes from this reason). Unfortunately the people who went to America in this time used to be brave, ambitious and cruel, so the people under their command suffered much more than the people in the "reducciones". The "encomienda" system was mainly used at the nort part of the Spanish domains, while the "reduccion" system was mainly used at the southern territories.

A couple of errors.