Spanish colonial labor systems evolved from repartimiento into the encomienda

Evidence

It has been said of the Spanish conquistadors,” Eric Williams was to write, “that first they fell on their knees, and then they fell on the aborigines.” From the first, it would seem, Columbus had little else in mind for these “wild people.” The repartimiento de Indios (the division of Indians for tasks necessary to the colonial settlements) of Columbus and his immediate successor, Francisco de Bobadilla, became the encomienda in the hands of the third governor of the Indies, Nicolas de Ovando. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 621

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines repartimiento and encomienda, the institutional predecessors of Atlantic slavery.