In March 1531, the royal tribunal of New Spain complained to Charles V that the conquistadores “do not dedicate themselves to any kind of work because they believe they deserve better”. At the same time, they added, Spaniards who were not conquistadores but owned “oxen to plough” could not find any land to work. This letter provides an interesting insight into the debates on the society that the Spaniards were building. After the fall of Tenochtitlán, the Spanish conquistadores took control of densely populated territories, notably the valleys of Mexico, Toluca and Tlaxcala. Although they had replaced the previous lords through conquest, they refused to work.
The seigneurial pretensions of the conquistadores worried the Catholic Monarchy, which tried to limit them by denying noble titles and granting titles of encomienda instead, the right to perceive the tribute due to the Crown, including direct labour [Zavala 1935, 1984]. The Crown also supported projects of colonisation centred o...
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