Upon the plantations the Indians are in reality slaves, notwithstanding the Mexican laws prohibit slavery. This condition is produced chiefly by two causes. The Mexican Indian who cherishes, as we have seen, a remarkable devotion to his old habits, customs, utensils and implements, is gifted with an equal tenacity or adhesiveness for the place of his birth. Nomadic as were his ancestors, the modern Mexican Indian is no wanderer. The idea of emigration, even to another state or district, never originates in his brain, or is tolerated if proposed to him as a voluntary act. So helpless is his condition if placed beyond the limits of his habitual neighborhood or hereditary haunts, that he feels himself perfectly lost, abandoned and cast off, if compelled to change either his residence or his occupation. He has no variety of resources. He knows nothing of alternatives. The operations of his mind, as well as of his hand, are perfectly mechanical. The utter helplessness of such an individual, if suddenly transferred from the midst of his companions and all the scenes of his life-long associations or duties, may be easily conceived, and consequently the greatest punishment that a haciendado, or Mexican planter, can inflict upon his Indian serf is to expel him from the estate upon which he and his ancestors have worked from time immemorial. When other punishments, which elsewhere would be thought severe, fail to produce reform or amendment in the Indian's conduct, it usually happens, that the serious threat of expulsion from the estate, made by the owner himself, or his authorised representative, to the native, reduces the refractory individual to subjection. Thus it is, that this peculiar territorial and local adhesiveness contributes to making the Indian's condition not only menial but servile.
The second cause may be found in the habits of wild and extravagant indulgence which we have already described. These licentious outbursts of recklessness create a pecuniary bond between the proprietor and his laborer. The Indian becomes his debtor. It is the policy of the landholder to establish this relation between himself and the Indian, and consequently he affords him every facility to sell himself in advance, even for life, to his estate. The Indian, is thus at least completely mortgaged to the landed proprietor, and as that personage usually possesses considerable influence in his neighborhood, the laborer finds it extremely difficult or nearly impossible to enforce his freedom even by appeals to the legal authorities. Such is the origin and system of peonage, which still curses Mexico although the repartimientos and slavery have been abolished by fundamental laws.
We have observed that there are other punishments of the Indians resorted to on Mexican plantations for trifling faults or misdemeanors, besides the great and final calamity of expulsion. They are fined and they are flogged. "Looking into the corridor," says Mr. Stephens, in his work on Yucatan, "we saw a poor Indian on his knees, on the pavement, with his arms clasped around the knees of another Indian, so as to present his back fairly to the lash. At every blow he rose on one knee and sent forth a piercing cry, he seemed struggling to retain it, but it burst forth in spite of all his efforts. His whole bearing showed the subdued character of the present Indians, and with the last stripe the expression of his face seemed that of thankfulness for not getting more. Without uttering a word, he crept to the major-domo, took his hand, kissed it, and walked away. No sense of degradation crossed his mind. Indeed, so humbled is this once fierce people that they have a proverb of their own: "Los Indios no oyien sino por las nalgas,"—"The Indians only hear through their backs."
This hereditary condition or relation between the Indian and the original Spanish races has acted and re-acted for their mutual degradation. With a large population under his control, for all purposes of labor and menial toil, the Spaniard, of whatever class, found himself entirely free from the necessity of manual labor or mechanical pursuits. Notwithstanding this immunity from bodily toil, the native of Castile did not devote the leisure he enjoyed, whilst the Indians were working for him, either to the improvement of his mind, or the preparation of philanthropic plans for the amelioration of his servant's lot. A mere physical life of personal indulgence, or an avaricious devotion to the rapid acquisition of fortune, absorbed the whole time of these planters, who lived in almost utter seclusion amid the lonely wastes of their large territorial possessions. The planter who resides in a populous nation, or who is enabled to visit easily the capitals of commerce, literature, and art, is a man, who, from his personal independence, culture, and wealth, is usually in our own country to be envied for the peculiar privileges which his station affords him. But in Mexico, the position and education of the planter, if he lives constantly on his estate,—which is not universally the case,—are altogether different from those of the North American land-holder. The Mexican possesses few or none of those social and intellectual qualities that have been cultivated by the North American in the best colleges and circles of his country; nor does he enjoy equal facilities of intercommunication between the cities or rural districts of Mexico. The immense size of his plantation which sometimes extends several leagues in length and breadth, necessarily disperses instead of congregating a populous neighborhood. "He is master of all he surveys,—he is lord of the fowl and the brute," but his dominion is a solitary and cheerless one. Few, and irregular posts rarely bring him the news of what occurs in the great world. Visits are seldom and ceremoniously paid. He must find within himself the constant springing source of vivacity and of an ambitious desire for progress, or he must subside into mere animal existence. The latter is unfortunately in most instances the natural result, and it is therefore not at all astonishing to find Mexican planters or their mayordomos devoting all their energies to the maintenance of the servile system we have described, whilst their statute-book and constitution profess to have abolished slavery.
Whilst such is the effect upon the character of the master or his representative, it is natural to suppose that the character of the servant will be equally degraded by the want of those new ideas with which the constant refreshing intercourse of society ventilates the mind. The Indian knows no world but that bounded by his horizon. Slavery, when involuntary, may even be respected in the sufferer, but the Indian who becomes a slave in spite of law, by religious superstition, loathsome vices, and time-hallowed servility, sinks far below the level of the African, who is sober, careful, faithful to his master and his family, and either from imitation, or a degree of natural dignity, seeks to acquire respectability among his fellow slaves.
"It is hardly possible," says Mühlenpfordt, "to judge of the true character and intellectual capacity of the Indian at a time when he has but just partially recovered his rights as man, and has had little opportunity of giving independent culture to his mental faculties. Though the civic oppression under which the Spaniards and Creoles held all the copper colored race and the colored people generally before the revolution, has, for the most part disappeared, yet their emancipation has, as yet, only nominally taken place. Hierarchial oppression has yet hardly decreased, and the clergy, both the inferior secular priests and the monks who have the greatest influence over the Indians, find their account in declining to promote, if they do not positively retard, their intellectual development. Time only can inform us what advantages will accrue to the Indians from the new order of things. Up to this period the introduction of the boasted civilization of Europe, as well as of the Catholic religion, has been of but trifling benefit to them, and only a trace here and there of progress to an amelioration of their condition is to be remarked.
"The Mexican Indian of the present day is generally grave and taciturn, and almost sullen, when not excited by music and intoxicating drinks to loquacity and pleasure. This serious character may be remarked even in the children, who appear more knowing at the age of five or six, than those of northern Europeans at that of nine or ten. But this appearance of steadiness is by no means consequent on a quicker development of mind, and the looks of these young people, dejected and void of all the cheerfulness and confidence of children, have nothing that gladdens the observer. Gruffness and reserve appear to be essential features of the Indian character, and it cannot, I think, be assumed that these qualities were implanted in them only by the long oppression that weighed down the Mexican race, first under their native rulers, and afterwards under the Spaniards; inasmuch as they occur among the aborigines almost universally throughout America, even when these have never suffered any curtailment of political liberty. To that cause may be rather attributed the stubbornness and selfishness which constitute a striking trait in the character of the present Indians. It is almost impossible to move any Indian to do a thing which they have resolved not to do. Vehemence, threats, even corporal punishment, are of as little avail as the offer of gold or reward; persuasion, coaxing, entreaties help as little. The Mexican Indian loves to give an appearance of mystery and importance to his most indifferent actions. If stirred up by weighty interests, he breaks his accustomed silence, and speaks with energy but never with fire. Jokes are as rare with him as raillery and laughter. I never heard an Indian laugh heartily, even when excited by spirituous liquors. His uncommon hardness of character allows him long to conceal the passions of indignation and vengeance. No sign betrays externally the fire that rages within until it suddenly breaks out with uncontrollable violence. In this condition the Indian is most likely inclined to commit the most dreadful cruelties and the most fearful crimes. The Mexican aborigines bear with the greatest patience the torments which the whites were formerly and are still inclined to indulge against them. They oppose to these a cunning which they dexterously hide under a semblance of indifference and stupidity. Despite their long slavery; despite every effort which has been employed to rob them of their historical recollections, they have by no means forgotten their former greatness. They know right well that they were once sole lords of the land, and that those Creoles who are so fond of calling themselves Americans, are but the sons and heirs of their oppressors. I have myself frequently heard Indians, when their ordinary reserve has been overcome by spirituous liquors, declare that they were the true masters of the country, that all others were mere foreign intruders, and that if the Creoles could expel the Spaniards they had a far better right to expel the Creoles. May the latter be taught by their own acuteness to grant the Indians, while it is yet time, the practical exercise of these civic rights theoretically conceded to them, for the revolt of the copper colored race would indeed present a fearful spectacle!"
INDIAN TRIBES OR RACES IN MEXICO
The following table exhibits, in separate groups, the varieties of parentage and blood, forming the castes in Mexico and throughout Spanish America: