Anahuac : or, Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern

by Edward B. Tylor

The history of the country, as far as we can get at it, indicates a movement in the opposite direction. Judging from the numerous towns the Spanish invaders found in the district, the numbers of armed men they could raise, and the abundance of provisions, we must reckon the population at that time to have been more dense than at present; and the numerous ruins of Indian settlements that exist in the upper temperate region are unquestionable evidence of the former existence of an agricultural people, perhaps ten times as numerous as at present. The ruins of their fortifications and temples are still to be seen in great numbers, and the soil all over large districts is full of the remains of their pottery and weapons.

How far these settlements were depopulated by wars before the Spanish Conquest, it is not easy to say. During the Conquest itself they did not offer much resistance to the European invaders, and consequently they escaped the wholesale destruction which fell upon the more patriotic inhabitants of the higher regions. Since that time the country has been peaceable enough; and even since the Mexican Independence, the wars and revolutions which have done so much injury to the inhabitants of the plateaus have not been much felt here.

In reasoning upon Mexican statistics we have to go to a great extent upon guess-work. A very slight investigation, however, shows that the calculation made in Mexico, that the population increases between one and two per cent. annually, is incorrect. The present population of the country is reckoned at a little under eight millions; and in 1806, it seems, from the best authorities we can get, to have been a little under six millions. Even this rate of increase, one-third every half-century, is far above the rate of increase since the Conquest; for, at that rate, a population a little over a million and a quarter would have brought up the number to what it is at present, and we cannot at the lowest estimation suppose the inhabitants after the siege of Mexico to have been less than three or four millions. So that, badly as Mexico is now going on with regard to the increase of its population, about ½ per cent. per annum, while England increases over 1½ per cent., and the United States twice as much, we may still discern an improvement upon the times of the Spanish dominion, when it was almost stationary.

Why then has this fertile and beautiful country only a small fraction of the number of inhabitants that formerly lived in it? That it is not caused by the climate being unfavourable to man is clear, for this district is free from the intense heat and the pestilential fevers of the low lands which lie nearer the sea.

It is a noticeable fact that the remains of the old settlements generally lie above the district where the banana grows; and the higher we rise above the sea, the more abundant do we find the signs of ancient population, until we reach the level of 8,000 feet or a little higher. The actual inhabitants at the present day are distributed according to the same rule, increasing in numbers, according to the elevation, from 3,000 to 8,000 feet, after which the severity of the climate causes a rapid decrease.

In making these observations, I leave out of the question the hot unhealthy coast-lands of the tierra caliente, and the cold and comparatively sterile plains of the tierra fría, and confine myself to that part of the country which lies between the altitudes of 3,000 and 8,000 feet, between which limits the European races flourish under circumstances of climate which also suited the various Mexican races, who probably came from a colder northern country. Now, if we begin to descend from the level of the Mexican plateau—say 8,000 feet above the sea—we find that less and less labour will provide nourishment for the cultivator of the soil, until we reach the limit of the banana, where the inhabitants ought to be crowded together like Chinese on their rice-grounds, or the inhabitants of Egypt in the time of Herodotus. Exactly the opposite rule takes effect; the banana-country is a mere wilderness, and the higher the traveller rises the more abundant become both present population and the remains of ancient settlements.

I suppose the reason of this is to be found in the habits and constitution of the tribes who colonized the country, and preferred to settle in a climate resembling that of their native land, without troubling themselves about the extra labour it would cost them to obtain their food. The European invaders have acted precisely in the same way; and the distribution of the white and partly white inhabitants of the country follows the same rule as that of the Indians.

So far the matter is intelligible, on the principle that the constitution and habits of the races which have successively taken up their residence in the country have been strong enough to prevail over the rule which regulates the supply of men by the abundance of food; but this does not explain the fact of an actual diminution of the inhabitants of the lower temperate districts. They were not mere migratory tribes, staying for a few years before moving forward. They had been settled in the country long enough to be perfectly acclimatized; and yet, under circumstances apparently so favourable to their increase, they have been diminishing for centuries, and are perhaps even doing so now.

The only intelligible solution I can find for this problem is that given by Sartorius, whose work on Mexico is well known in Germany, and has been translated and published in England. This author’s remarks on the condition of the Indians are very valuable; and, as he was for years a planter in this very district, he may be taken as an excellent authority on the subject. He considers the evil to lie principally in the diet and habits of the people. The children are not weaned till very late, and then are allowed to feed all day without restriction on boiled maize, or beans, or whatever other vegetable diet may be eaten by the family. The climate does not dispose them to take much exercise; so that this unwholesome cramming with vegetable food has nothing to counteract its evil effects, and the poor little children get miserably pot-bellied and scrofulous,—an observation of which we can confirm the truth. A great proportion of the children die young, and those that grow up have their constitutions impaired. Then they live in close communities, and marry “in-and-in,” so that the effect of unhealthy living becomes strengthened into hereditary disease; and habitual intemperance does its work upon their constitutions, though the quantities of raw spirits they consume appear to produce scarcely any immediate effect. Among a race in this bodily condition, the ordinary epidemics of the country—cholera, small-pox, and dysentery—make fearful havoc. Whole villages have often been depopulated in a few days by these diseases; and a deadly fever which used to appear from time to time among the Indians, until the last century, sometimes carried off ten thousand and twenty thousand at once. It seemed to me worth while to make some remarks about this question, with a view of showing that the theory as to the relation between food and population, though partly true, is not wholly so; and that in the region of which we have been speaking it can be clearly shown to fail.

After spending a long morning with the Indians and their cura, we took quite an affectionate leave of them. Their last words were an apology for making us pay threepence apiece for the pineapples which we loaded our horses with. In the season, they said, twelve for sixpence is the price, but the fruit was scarce and dear as yet.