The white and mixed races, especially the former, constitute the property-owning and administrative classes, and naturally the Mexican upper class is drawn from these. The six million Indians, more or less, constitute some fifty aboriginal tribes in various stages of semi-civilisation or savagery, distributed all over the country from Sonora to Yucatan, and these are described elsewhere. It is not to be supposed that they are savages as a whole; for, on the contrary, they are remarkably gifted in some cases, assimilating the civilisation and intellect of the white man and furnishing excellent material for the country's citizens. The upper-class Mexicans, like the Peruvians or other Spanish-Americans when they are of unmixed white descent, naturally pride themselves upon the fact, and to a certain extent aim to preserve this condition. This is the "colour-line" of the race, and the term "Indio" is still a term expressing something of contempt, notwithstanding the fact that some of the prominent, and even intellectual, men of Mexico's history have been drawn from the Mestizo class, and—in the case of Juarez—from pure aboriginal stock. Of course, the Indian is, as yet, an inferior being.
Included in Mexico's population is a foreign element numbering some 60,000 people, more or less, Spaniards predominating, with more than 16,000, and Americans of the United States with somewhat over 15,000. This is according to the census of 1900, and it is probable that both these elements have increased considerably since then. Of British there are only some 3,000 in the country; of French about 4,000; and of Germans 2,600, approximately. The vast area of Mexican territory contains only about twenty persons to the square mile; were it populated in the same ratio as parts of Europe it might support a population of 180,000,000, it has been calculated.
As has been shown, but a small percentage of the Mexican people are of purely white descent. As for the characteristic type of Mexican—those of mixed white and aboriginal race—they form the principal human element of the country, and shade off indefinably into the peon class. This class, drawn both from Mestizos and Indians, forms the great working population, in the fields and the mines, and without them the national industries would be non-existent. They are a picturesque, poor and generally ignorant class, although possessed of excellent natural elements and traits which must develop as time goes on. They form a strong, virile backbone to the country, but the conditions of their life are at present but little removed from serfdom, due to their general poverty as a class and to the monopolisation of the ownership of land by the upper classes. In this connection it is to be recollected that the natives of the civilised pre-Hispanic States of the Americas—as Mexico and Peru—enjoyed an excellent system of individual land-tenure, or rather, of free land-use, which gave being to a strong, independent peasantry; and this, in Peru, still obtains to a certain degree, due principally to the inaccessibility of the Andine regions. But in Mexico such a class no longer exists, and the peon lives by sufferance upon the soil which was wrested from his forbears by the white man, who adopted there the singular land customs of Europe, which arrogate to the enjoyment of a few the soil which philosophy points to as belonging to the community.[27] Enormous landed estates are held in Mexico—indeed, in the State of Chihuahua the largest single estate in the world exists—and a semi-feudal régime of the land and its inhabitants marks the character of this modern American civilisation. The population on the soil scarcely reaches twenty persons to the square mile—principally rural or inhabiting small towns—and there is ample room, therefore, for expansion. It must, however, be stated that excellent new land laws have been promulgated of recent years in the Republic. National lands have been set aside in vast areas, and any inhabitant of the Republic may "denounce" or acquire a piece of such land, and retain it by annual tax-payment at prices varying from two pesos—a peso is about two shillings—in the remote regions, to twenty or thirty pesos per hectare—equal to 2½ acres—in the more settled States. The Mexican peasantry is not debarred absolutely from the enjoyment of the land if he has the knowledge and means to perform the simple requirements necessary to its acquisition—which generally he has not. I have dealt in detail with the matters of land acquisition elsewhere in this work, and with the conditions of life of and the character of the peon class familiarly.
27 In certain regions there are, of course, numerous Indian squatters and landholders.
To cast, now, a glance at ethnic conditions, it is sufficient to say that a wide range of peoples have mingled their blood in the race which now forms the people of Mexico. No other American nation constitutes so varied a blending of races. The invading Conquistadores and their followers from Spain—which itself has formed from the beginning of history a veritable crucible or mixing-ground of the world's peoples, languages and creeds—brought Iberian, Roman, Celtic, Semite, Vandal, Goth, and Moorish blood to Mexico, and mingled it with the aboriginal Aztecs and others. As to the origin of the Mexican aboriginals, this is unknown or only conjectured, but they embrace an enormous range of tribes, some 230 names of which appear in the list compiled by Mexican ethnologists. These, however, are grouped into some twelve or more linguistic families, among whom may be mentioned in order of their numerical importance the Nahuatlan, Otomian, Zapotecan, Mayan, Tarascan, Totonacan, Piman, Zoquean, and others, including the Serian and the Athapascan, or Apache. These families embody people of very varying degrees of native culture; from the low type of the abject Seri Indians, inhabiting part of Sonora; the treacherous and bloodthirsty Apaches, who formerly roved over the vast deserts of the north, up to the cultured peoples who formed the prehistoric civilisation of the country; the Nahuatl- and Maya-speaking races, who, in the peninsula of Yucatan and the Valley of Mexico, were the foremost peoples in point of culture of the whole of the New World, and who have left the remarkable chapters in stone of their history which are scattered about Mexico, and which have been described in a former chapter.
To-day the vast area and different peoples of Mexico are combined politically into one community—a Federation of States or Federal Republic; and the blending of the peoples, carnally, goes on day by day, as there are not inseparable distinctions of colour or creed to keep them asunder. Politically Mexico may be considered as the foremost of the Spanish-American Republics, her population being the greatest, and her civilisation more broadly developed than any of her sister-nations. The form of government, as stated, is that known as a Federal Republic—a definition of which is that the numerous States composing the whole are free and sovereign as regards their internal régime, but united under their representative, democratic Constitution as a political entity.
The Constitution is fashioned upon the model of the United States to a certain extent, and as a Federation differs from most of the other Spanish-American republics. The supreme authority of the Republic is held and exercised by three bodies—the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judiciary. The Legislative embodies the Congress, or Parliament, consisting of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, the members of which are elected, the first in the proportion of one for every 60,000 inhabitants, every two years: and the second of two Senators for each State every four years. The Judiciary consists of the Supreme and other courts, the judges of the first being elected, and the business of the body relates to law and justice concerning Federal, political, and international matters. The Executive in Mexico consists of a single depositary of authority—the President, who, with the vice-president, is elected, and who enter upon office on the 1st of December, for terms of six years. The Constitution which all these officials swear to uphold is that first brought to being on February 5, 1857, with various modifications. By the Reform Laws of 1859, and their additions of 1873, the Church and State are absolutely independent of each other, and the power and functions of the ecclesiastical authority are rigidly defined. The Federation consists of thirty-one States and "territories," which latter are subject to Federal control and regulation of their internal régime, unlike the former. The States are governed by Governors.
Mexico has, therefore, well established all the machinery of a republic, wherein equal rights of man and the sovereignty of the people are well set forth. How do these excellent methods and theories work out in practice as regards the social system and inhabitants? A republic in name, Mexico shares with Spanish-American countries generally, social conditions which are far from being embodied in the real meaning of that designation. It is not necessary to dwell much upon this palpable fact, and its reason is not far to seek. The communities of the New World which Spain conquered were inhabited by inferior peoples who were easily enslaved, or who were already subject to autocratic forms of government. Every Spaniard who arrived there—were he a noble of Castile or a common boor from his native Iberian province—was full of the arrogance and superiority, sometimes fancied, generally real, of the civilised European, and this spirit burst into full bloom amid the environment of such countries as Mexico and Peru. Thus an autocratic race was established whose class distinctions are as strong and enduring as those of the most class-ridden countries of Europe. It would be impossible to expect other conditions yet, with a great mass of the people being of Indian race, and coming on almost imperceptibly towards civic knowledge and intellectual advancement. Scarcely 13 per cent. of the total population can read and write, whilst as to the labouring classes they are only just beginning to show any advancement along lines of modern civilisation. Nevertheless the Government of the country has their welfare at heart, and in the last quarter of a century has regarded the working classes and Indians as citizens with rights rather than mere material for revolutionary struggle, as was formerly the case. The Mexican people having always been sharply divided into two classes, an upper and a lower; a middle-class, such as in Europe or the United States forms the great bulk of intelligent citizens, tends but slowly to appear, and it is this which must be encouraged to arise and to absorb the aboriginal element.