Los indígenas de Buenos Aires a comienzos del siglo XVIII: Los reales pueblos de indios y la declinación de la encomienda

Abstract

During the seventeenth century, infectious diseases, desertion, and intermarriage were taking their toll on the encomiendas of Buenos Aires. At the beginning of the following century, the few indigenous groups that were still subject to the encomienda system were settled in towns by the royal administration and organized according to the mita system. They were thus administered textiles and a diet rich in bovine proteins in order that they might concentrate their efforts more effectively on their mita duties, rather than on their own agricultural efforts.