Among the economic demands of Spanish colonialism on indigenous peoples, the repartimiento de mercancías (the forced production and exchange of goods illegally imposed by colonial magistrates) arguably has received less scholarly attention than better-known and more egregious early colonial institutions such as slavery, the encomienda (individual grants of tribute and labor), and forced labor (sometimes also known as repartimiento). Yet a sustained focus on the range of practices falling under this label potentially illuminates many key questions of the later colonial period when they were at their height: How were apparently remote regions of the Spanish Empire articulated with the world economy? How did these practices integrate with other (legal) colonial impositions, such as tribute? What role did colonial magistrates (who were known as corregidores, alcaldes mayores, and governors) play in representing the bureaucracy and the colonial state to indigenous peoples? And most critically, what did these...
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