Tasa de Gamboa facts for kids
Tasa de Gamboa (also known as the Gamboa Rate) was a special tax system created for the native people in the area that is now Chile. It was introduced by the Governor Martin Ruiz de Gamboa in 1580. This new system was meant to replace an older, unfair practice called personal service, where native people were forced to work for Spanish settlers. The kings of Spain wanted to stop these forced labor practices. The Gamboa Rate took the place of an even older system called the Tasa de Santillán.
What Was the Gamboa Rate?
The Gamboa Rate of 1580 completely stopped the practice of forced personal service. Instead, native people living in specific areas (called repartimientos) had to pay a yearly tax. This tax was nine pesos in the Santiago region and seven pesos in the La Imperial region.
To manage this new tax system and help protect the native people, a new job was created: the corregidor. These officials were paid from a part of the tax money. However, most of the tax money still went to the encomenderos, who were the Spanish settlers who had been given control over groups of native people.
These corregidors were supposed to look after the interests of the native people in their area. They also had to organize the work of the native laborers. If a native person worked for pay, their wages were decided by a judge called the justicia mayor. The tax (the Gamboa Rate) was then taken directly from these wages. This money was kept in a special community box with three keys. The corregidor, the local priest, and the native leader (called the cacique) each had one key to this box.
Why Didn't It Last?
From the very beginning, the bishop of Santiago, Diego de Medellín, tried to make sure that no encomendero who used forced native labor could receive religious sacraments. However, the new Gamboa Rate system didn't make anyone happy.
The native people often faced even more unfair treatment from the corregidors than they had from the encomenderos. At the same time, the encomenderos lost a lot of their income because they no longer had free labor.
Because of these problems, the Gamboa Rate didn't last long. Just a few years after Governor Gamboa was replaced by Governor Alonso de Sotomayor, the Gamboa Rate was officially ended in 1587. Governor Sotomayor then brought back a labor system that was very similar to the old Tasa de Santillán.
See also
In Spanish: Tasa de Gamboa para niños
