6.+Hispaniola+as+a+Spanish+Colony+under+Ovando's+rule

=Hispaniola as a Spanish Colony under Ovando's rule=

In 1502, Nicolas Ovando arrived in Hispaniola to pick up his position as the new governor as well as the Supreme Justice of the islands and the mainland of the Indies.

Ovando's role as the new governor was clear, to make the new lands profitable and to create a new Spanish empire. Ovando's first aim was to produce enough food for large numbers of settlers. First he brought in 2000 colonists, he brought livestock including, pigs, goats, cattle and horses (all of which were foreign to the New World). New crops which they brought were wheat, barley, rice, oranges, olives and sugarcane. With all of these methods of development, the populationn of Hispaniola grew to 12,000 settlers in the 5 years after Ovando became governor of Hispaniola.

__**Systems of forced labour**__

Starting in Hispaniola, systems of forced labour were introduced. Columbus introduced __**encomienda**__ In Hispaniola and later Ovando introduced **__repartimiento.__**

__(1)Encomiendas__

At first the Spanish rulers had commanded the Spaniards in the Indies to disturb the Amerindians as little as possible and to leave them free to follow their own customs .It soon became clear however that this was impossible if any profits was to be made from the Indies.At the beginning of the 16th century, Ovando introduced the system of encomienda. Encomienda was a system by which a grant of land along with a number of Amerindians for labour were entrusted to a Spanish settler known as an encomendero.

Originally, the encomendero was supposed to assign a Spanish priest to educate the Amerindians about Catholicism and to support them. The encomenderos were supposed to collect goods and gold from the Amerindians in return.

Very soon after the introduction of the encomienda, the Spaniards began to demand labour rather than goods and gold from the Amerindians. They also took over their best land, they did not pay them any wages for work and they did not educate nor convert the Amerindians as promised.

(2__) Repartimiento__ The repartimiento system involved a percentage of the Indigenous male population between the ages of 18 and 60 was recruited to work for a Spaniard for a week for pay. However, they were hardly ever paid.

__The difference between Ovando and Columbas as governors of Hispaniola__ Nicolas Ovando was different from Columbus because he stayed in Hispaniola to govern it instead of returning to Spain and not focusing on governing the island like Columbus did. Ovando governed Hispaniola in a way that made Hispaniola the model for the Spanish Empire. His accomplishments with Hispaniola was developing it into a successful colony within a short space of time due to
 * successful cattle ranching
 * gold production
 * sugar and tobacco production

. Many Spaniards were drawn to the island because of news of how well organised it was and that he had organised gold mining there.