By his Libro de Tasas, or Book of Rules, Toledo fixed the tribute to be paid by the Indians, exempting all men under the age of eighteen, or over that of fifty. The Indians were governed by native chiefs of their own people, whose duty it was to collect the tribute, and pay it in to the Spanish corregidor or governor of the province, as well as to exercise subordinate magisterial functions. These chiefs, called Curacas in the time of the Incas, were ordered by Toledo to be named Caciques, a word brought from the West Indian islands;[161] and under them there were two other native officials—the Pichca-pachacas, placed over 500 Indians, and the Pachacas over 100. These offices were inherited from father to son, and their possessors enjoyed several privileges, such as the exemption from arrest, except for grave offences, and they received a fixed salary. The native Caciques were often men of considerable wealth; some of them were members of the royal family of the Incas; they were free from the payment of tribute and from personal service; and thus occupied positions of importance amongst their countrymen.[162] They wore the same dress which distinguished the nobles of the Inca's court, consisting of a tunic called uncu, a rich mantle or cloak of black velvet called yacolla, intended as mourning for the fall of their ancient rulers; and those of the family of the Incas added a sort of coronet, whence a red fringe of alpaca-wool descended as an emblem of nobility. This head-dress was called mascapaycha. They had pictures of the Incas in their houses, and encouraged the periodical festivals in memory of their beloved sovereigns, when plays were enacted, and mournful music was produced from the national instruments, drums, trumpets, clarions, and pututus, or sea shells.[163] All these customs were left unchanged by Toledo, and the system so far resembles that which now prevails in the Dutch colony of Java.[164]
But, in addition to the tribute, the amount of which as established by Toledo was not excessive, and which was rendered still less objectionable to the Indians from being collected by their native chiefs, there was the mita or forced labour in mines, manufactories, and farms,[165] which became the instrument of fearful oppression and cruelty. Toledo enacted that a seventh part of the adult male population of every village should be subject to the mita, and ordered that the Caciques should send these mitayos, as they were called, to the public squares of the nearest Spanish towns, where they might be hired by those who required their services; and laws were enacted to regulate the distance they might be taken from their homes, and their payment.[166] It appears, however, that this seventh part of the working men who were told off for forced labour was exclusive of those employed in the mines, so that, even in theory, the mita condemned a large fraction of the population to slavery.[167]
There was a class of Indians, numbering about 40,000 souls in the time of Toledo (1570), called Yanaconas, who were scattered over Peru, and forced to work on the lands of Spaniards, or as domestic servants. They may have been descendants of captives in war, or of persons who had been condemned to slavery in the time of the Incas, and thus became the property of the conquerors; but in 1601 an enactment was promulgated to ameliorate their condition, and fix the terms of their service.[168]
In matters connected with religion the Spanish legislators allowed of no temporizing policy. All signs of idolatry must disappear, and with the new religion came additional exactions, in the shape of fees for masses, burials, and christenings. Toledo enacted many laws for the suppression of the old religion of the Incas: any Indian who married an idolatrous woman was to receive one hundred stripes, "because that is the punishment which they dislike most;" the people were prohibited from using surnames taken from the names of birds, beasts, serpents, or rivers, which was their ancient custom; and no Indian who had been punished for idolatry, joining in infidel rites, or dancing the dance called arihua, could be appointed to hold any public office.[169]
On the whole, however, the legislation of the Spanish kings, and the reports of the viceroys of Peru, display an earnest desire to protect the Indians from tyranny, and to render their condition tolerable. In 1615 the Marquis of Montes Claros impressed on his successor the importance of obliging all classes of Spaniards to treat the Indians well, and of chastising oppression with rigour. In 1681 the Count of Castellar states that one of the points most dwelt upon in the instructions given to the viceroys, and in repeated royal enactments, was the humane treatment of the Indians; and he declares that he always sought to enforce these orders from the day that he landed in Peru; and words to the same effect are to be found in the reports of most of the other viceroys.[170]
But side by side with these evidences of the good intentions of the Government, is the testimony of the viceroys that their efforts to comply with these beneficent orders, and enforce these humane laws, were fruitless, and rendered of no effect by the unworthiness of their subordinates; and almost all complain of the rapid depopulation of the country. In 1620 the Prince of Esquilache reported that "the arm of the viceroy was not powerful against the negligence and maladministration of the corregidors;" in 1681 the Count of Castellar said that he had to correct and punish the excesses both of the corregidors and the curas; in 1697 the Duke of La Palata speaks of the depopulation of the villages and towns, caused by the forcible detention of the Indians to work at the mines, in cloth and cotton workshops, and in farms; and another viceroy attributes the rapid depopulation of the country to the same causes, and also to drink, and urges a closer supervision of the conduct of the corregidors and curas.
I have, in a former work, given a brief account of the treatment of the Indians, and of the way in which the laws intended for their defence were evaded; from the evidence of the brothers Ulloa, who were commissioned to make a special and secret report on the subject to the King of Spain in 1740.[171] I have since collected abundant testimony to the same effect, printed and in manuscript, both at Madrid and in Peru; but I have only space for a few brief notes, which must serve to illustrate this part of the subject.
The mines of Potosi were supplied with labourers from the nearest provinces, by enforcing a mita of a seventh of the adult male population. In 1573 this mita consisted of 11,199 Indians, in 1620 of 4249, and in 1678 of 1674,[172] a decrease which marks the rapid depopulation of the country; and, at the latter date, when the authorities at Potosi failed to receive a sufficient number of labourers by the ordinary mita, they kidnapped people in their homes, and on the roads, and carried them off to forced labour in the mines. The law was that the mitayos should be paid for coming and going, and that they should not be forced to work at night; but these laws were habitually set at nought, and Potosi became an exhausting drain to the surrounding country.[173]
The mines of Huancavelica, which supplied the quicksilver necessary for extracting the silver of Potosi from its ores,[174] also desolated the ten adjoining provinces. In 1645 the mita or seventh part of the adult male population amounted to 620, and in 1678 to only 354 Indians. The mita was a service which was abhorred and dreaded by the people, and mothers maimed the arms and legs of their children to deliver them from this slavery. Don Juan de Padilla relates that, in 1657, when he was at Santa Lucia, in the province of Lucanas, he saw the women of the village go out to assist each other in sowing their fields, and, at the end of their labour, they returned hand in hand, singing a most melancholy song, and lamenting the cruel fate of their husbands and brothers, who were slaving in the mines of Huancavelica, while they were obliged to work in the fields like men. They declared that when a man was once taken for the mita his wife seldom or never saw him again, unless she went herself to the place of his torments.[175]
The oppression of the owners of obrajes or manufactories of coarse woollen and cotton cloths, in enforcing the mitas, was as crushing as that of the miners. These people employed men, called guatacos, to hunt the Indians, and drive them into the obrajes. If they could not find the particular men for whom they were in search, they took their children, wives, and nearest neighbours, robbed them of all they possessed, and frequently violated the women and young girls.[176] The masters, in the obrajes, then forced their victims to get deeply in debt to them, and thus obtained an excuse for keeping them in perpetual slavery. In many obrajes there were Indians who had not been outside the walls for forty years and upwards. The law was that the natives should be free from tribute and personal service until they attained the age of eighteen; but it was the general practice to drag children from their homes at the ages of six or eight, force them to work hard at twisting woollen and cotton threads, and flog them cruelly.[177]