Note 3 — ROYAL COMMUNICATIONS TO AND CONCERNING LEGAZPI
Reading edition
By a decree dated at Burgos, February 22, 1512, Fernando orders that no encomendero may have more than three hundred Indians; for if they have more than that number, “they cannot be well treated, aided, maintained, or instructed in the matters of our holy Catholic faith, as would be proper.” In the Philippines, encomenderos had sometimes as many as one thousand two hundred natives. See Doc. Ined. Amer. y Oceania, i, pp. 237–241, and Census of Philippine Islands, i, p. 423. ↑