Language of the Voiceless: Traces of Taino Language, Food, and Culture in the Americas From 1492 to the Present

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[…] el gobernador della, que se decía Diego Velázquez, deudo mío, me prometió
que me daría indios de los primeros que vacasen, y no quise aguardar a que me
los diesen.
The next element in Bernal Diaz’ text is not a linguistic term per se but a common
sociocultural practice of slave labor by the Spanish government during the early period
of the Spanish colonial structure of the Caribbean called repartimientos or
encomiendas. These assignments (later revived in the continental lands of the Spanish
Crown) were part of a system that awarded a certain number of Indians to a Spanish
landowner or individual with certain social status as payment for service to the Spanish
Crown. According to de Las Casas, “each encomendero got assigned around three
hundred Indians 58 ”. It is important to note that the Indians assigned to the
encomendero were (like in most slave systems) considered private property and often
traveled (as transport help or general servant labor) with their encomenderos as new
lands became available in the continent. However, these Indians seldom appeared
directly mentioned in the Spanish accounts and their presence in Diaz del Castillo text is
often indirect, ambiguous and obscure. This observation is made to illustrate the
possibility of Indian people traveling along with the Spanish to what is now Mexico, for
the purpose of the conquest of New Spain, which at that point were the Taino.
The text below is one the first fragments of the primary sources of the Spanish
conquest were the encomienda system is described.
Como los pueblos que tenían eran todos una muy graciosa huerta cada uno, como se dijo,
aposentáronse en ellos los cristianos, cada uno en el pueblo que le repartían (o, como
dicen ellos, le encomendaban), y hacía en él sus labranzas, manteniéndose de las
58
(p. 36)