Note 2 — Chapter I
Reading edition
The word repartimiento means, division, partition, distribution, or apportionment. In the old Spanish historians and English books, such as Zaraté, Garcilasso de la Vega, Fernandez, Robertson, it is uniformly used to denote the well known allotment of lands and vassal Indians (genuine adscripti glebæ) granted to the first conquerors in reward of their services. In some later writers, this word is applied to the monopoly of sales to the Indians exercised by the corregedores, under pretext of protecting the Indians from imposition, by the official distribution of goods. N. A. Review, vol. xx. p. 287.
"Indeed the Spanish court made no scruple of regarding the Indians in the same light as the beasts and the soil, disposing of them as the rightful property of the crown; for it was not till 1537, nearly fifty years after the discovery, that the Pope issued a mandate declaring them to be really and truly men,—"ipsos veros homines,"—and capable of receiving the Christian faith." N. A. Review, vol. xix. p. 198.