<P> The encomienda system in Spanish America differed from the Peninsular institution in that encomenderos did not own the land on which the natives lived . The system did not entail any direct land tenure by the encomendero; Indian lands were to remain in the possession of their communities . </P> <P> This right was formally protected by the crown of Castile because the rights of administration in the New World belonged to this crown and not to the Catholic monarchs as a whole . </P> <P> The first grantees of the encomienda or encomenderos were usually conquerors who received these grants of labor by virtue of participation in a successful conquest . Later, some receiving encomiendas in New Spain (Mexico) were not conquerors themselves but were sufficiently well connected that they received grants . </P> <P> In his study of the encomenderos of early colonial Mexico, Robert Himmerich y Valencia divides conquerors into those who were part of Hernan Cortes's original expedition, calling them "first conquerors" and those who were members of the later Narváez expedition who were incorporated into Cortes's contingent, calling them "conquerors". He designated as pobladores antiguos (old settlers), a group of undetermined number of encomenderos in New Spain, men who were resident in the Caribbean prior to the Spanish conquest of Mexico . </P>

Who did the spanish crown granted encomienda to in the 16th century