Encomiendaor Slavery? The Spanish Crown's Choice of Labor Organization in Sixteenth-Century Spanish America
研究了西班牙王室在征服新大陆后为何选择委托监护制而非奴隶制，分析了这种选择对王室收入、殖民者激励和意识形态的影响。
When the Spaniards conquered the New World, they resorted to a form of native labor organization called the encomienda . The encomienda differed from slavery in that the Crown imposed inheritance, trading, and relocation restrictions on encomenderos . Such restrictions cost the Crown revenue by providing incentives for colonists to deplete more quickly the stock of native labor and by keeping native labour in areas of low-revenue productivity. This loss of revenue makes the Crown's Preference for the encomienda curious. The Crown opted for the encomienda , however, to secure its rule and to satisfy an ideological bias against slavery.