Tribute

The payment owed by the colonised population to the Spanish state, collected in kind or in coin, through the encomienda and later through the local administration.

The feature that makes it load-bearing for this course is not its size but who was outside it. Members of the principalía were classed among those who paid nothing, while their neighbours were classed among those who paid. The men doing the collecting were exempt from the thing they collected, and were given no salary worth the name for doing it.

That combination is what turns a tax into a compensation model. Nothing had to be stolen for money to stay in the collector’s hands. The arrangement was written that way.

Source: Blair and Robertson (eds.), The Philippine Islands, 1493 to 1898, 55 volumes, 1903 to 1909, free on Project Gutenberg, via the compiled account of the principalía citing vols. 17, 27, 29, 36, 40 and 46. The de privilegio y gratis and de pago classifications come from the same source chain.

First used in: 1.2 · The office that was paid by the people it governed