Read Ebook: Mexico Aztec Spanish and Republican Vol. 2 of 2 A Historical Geographical Political Statistical and Social Account of that Country from the Period of the Invasion by the Spaniards to the Present Time. by Mayer Brantz

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The church, the army, and the government, are thus three permanent resources for young persons who are too indolent to engage in mercantile pursuits, or too proud to stoop from their hereditary family rank either into trade or the workshop.

We are perhaps wrong in alleging that every duty is procrastinated, and life given up exclusively to pleasure; for the genuine Mexican is strict and punctual in the performance of, at least, the externals of religion. The pious observances of the church, are, however, even more generally rigorous among the women than the men.

Yet we will not be tempted by an epigrammatic sentence, into condemnation of the whole of Mexican society. It would be unjust to convey an unqualified idea that such are the characteristics of the entire white race whose birth or rank entitle it to an exalted social position. Nevertheless, it is a true picture of perhaps the most numerous class. The Mexican revolution--its struggles, endurance and success,--disclose many manly features of national character, and prepare us to appreciate that patriotic and cultivated body of men and women who form the national heart and hope of the republic.

The Mexicans have been so harshly dealt with in the descriptions of foreigners, that they are not always disposed to welcome them beyond their thresholds. This arises neither from fear nor jealousy, but from the natural distrust of persons whom they imagine visit their country with but little sympathy for its institutions and less consideration for their personal habits. Nor is this repulsiveness to strangers exhibited so much in the fashionable circles of society as it is among that loftier description of persons we have already referred to. Yet there are occasions upon which the houses and hearts of this very class are cordially opened to intelligent and discreet foreigners, and it is then that an opportunity is afforded of seeing the best phases of Mexican character. The fine benevolence of ancient friendship, the universal respect for genius, a competent knowledge of the laws and institutions of other countries, a perfect acquaintance with the causes of Mexican decadence, and a charming regard and care for all those domestic rites which cement the affections of a home circle, may all be observed and admired within the walls of a Mexican dwelling.

When a stranger is thus received in the confidential intimacy of a household, there is no longer any restraint put upon the inmates in his presence. The courteous expressions which are ordinarily used in the commerce of society, and whose formal but excessive politeness have induced careless men to imagine the Mexicans insincere, are now only expressive of the most cordial devotion to your interests and wants. "Mi casa esta ?? su disposition," "my house is at your disposal," means exactly what it says. You are at home.

Such were the superstitious opinions amongst the most civilized of all the Indian nations at the period of the conquest. It is not surprising therefore to find the other nomadic, predatory hordes,--whose ferocity was not so keen as that of their northern kindred, but had been tempered and softened in some degree by the genial climate of the tropics,--soon yielding to the superior will of a masculine race, eager, not only for gold, but for the establishment of estates which were in fact principalities, and whose beneficial improvement required the employment of large bodies of continual and compulsory laborers. The Indians afforded the staple of this stock at once. The conquest rooted out all their old institutions by violence. Their government and laws were overthrown by force; their religion was changed by power; their graven idols, the material emblems of their gods, were ground to dust; their social system was completely overturned; and thus, perfectly annihiliated as a nation, in politics, theology, and domestic life or habits, they were, in the end, but wretched outcasts in their own land.

The aborigines throughout Mexico have been devoted as a class to agricultural labors. Immediately after the conquest the Spaniards forced them to toil in the mines as well as in the fields; but as soon as a race of mixed blood was found to replace these original laborers in the bowels of the earth, the native Indian escaped to wilder districts where there were no mines, or where his services were required on the surface of the earth. Besides this, since the revolution, labor has been somewhat more free than before that epoch. The Indian, if not bound to the estate, by the slavery of debt, as we shall see hereafter, has the right to do what he pleases, and consequently he selects that labor which will give him support with least fatigue in a country whose soil is almost spontaneously productive.

In the field, the Indian executes all the labor,--sometimes in the midst of the great plantations of sugar, cotton, coffee, corn, tobacco, wheat, and barley--or, at others, in the midst of the beautiful gardens for which some parts of the republic are celebrated. In all these positions his labor is faithfully performed;--but he is the enemy of all changes in the modes or utensils of his work. He prefers the old system of drawing water for irrigation; the old system of rooting the earth with the Arab stake instead of the American plough; the old system of carrying offal, stones, or whatever is to be removed from his fields, in bags, instead of in barrows or carts; and the old system of bearing every burden, no matter how onerous, on his shoulders instead of a dray or a wagon. It offends him to speak of changes, which he regards as unrighteous innovations. His character, like that of the Chinese, is one of excessive tenacity for old customs. After three centuries of constant intercourse with strange races, he still segregates himself from the foreigner, and, nestling in his native village, keeps aloof from the Spaniard. He speaks his hereditary language; clings to his old habits; and,--according to the report of reliable travellers,--worships, occasionally in private, his ancestral idols. In the capital, garlands which have been secretly suspended on the images by Indians, are still sometimes found around the hideous Aztec divinities preserved in the court yard of the University. "You gave us three very good gods"--said an Indian once to a respectable Catholic curate,--"yet you might as well have left us a few of our own!"

We have said that the Indians are frugal in their food and economical in their dress, for in reality, their meals commonly consist only of cereal products, and, especially, of corn. Atol?, tortillias, Chili peppers and frijoles, are sufficient to support them. They do not eat flesh habitually, and yet they are healthy and robust, nor is it extraordinary to see individuals among them who attain the advanced age of more than of ninety years.

Their occasional indulgence in drunkenness, disgusting and injurious as it is at the moment, does not generally destroy the constitutions of these hardy laborers, whose subsequent compulsory temperance, not only in drink but in food, soon repairs the momentary inroads of a day's debauch.

The dress of both men and women is the simplest and the cheapest possible. In the state of ignorance and abjection in which this race has been so long held, it is not easy to conceive whether their intellectual faculties might be again aroused. In some of the colleges of Mexico, individuals have applied themselves with great care, have received classical educations, and made remarkable progress even in the sciences, in some of which they excelled. But generally speaking, these instances may be regarded as remarkable exceptions. The Indian, as we have

before observed, when he quits the agricultural field, exhibits most talent in the imitative arts. The instruments and materials he uses are of the simplest and rudest kind, and, although the imitations produced by him are wonderfully accurate, yet they want that lively variety which is only produced by vivid imaginations.

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 M? 1/4 hlenpfordt, "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!"

IN THE STATES OF CHIAPAS AND TABASCO.

IN THE STATE OF OAJACA.

IN THE STATE OF QUERETARO.

IN THE STATE OF MICHOACAN.

IN THE STATE OF GUANAJUATO.

IN THE STATE OF JALISCO.

STATES OF SAN LUIS POTOSI, NEW LEON AND TAMAULIPAS.

IN THE STATES OF DURANGO AND CHIHUAHUA.

IN THE STATE OF SINALOA.

IN THE STATE OF SONORA.

IN OLD CALIFORNIA.

IN NEW CALIFORNIA.

The following table exhibits, in separate groups, the varieties of parentage and blood, forming the castes in Mexico and throughout Spanish America:

TABLE OF CASTES

PARENTS.

RESULTS.

Maximum of annual increase of population in Oajaca, 15,000

Minimum " " " " 6,000

Maximum " " " Zacatecas 12,000

Minimum " " " " 500

TABLE OF POPULATION IN VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS IN DIFFERENT YEARS--RELATIVE EXCESES--BIRTHS AND DEATHS.

Years. Departments, States, or Cantons Males. Females. Excess Excess of States. males. females.

The Peso de oro, is rated by Prescott, 1,111,202 " " } at .65 cents, and by Ramirez, 1,812,051 " " } at .93 cents.

It appears from these data that the exhaustion of the mines of Mexico is contradicted by the geognostic facts of the country, and as we shall hereafter show, by the recent issues of Mexican mints. The mint of Zacatecas, alone, during the revolutionary epoch, from 1811 to 1833, struck more than ,332,766, and, in the eleven last years of this period, from four to five millions of dollars were coined by it every year uninterruptedly.

The general metallic production of the country,--which was of course impeded by the revolutionary state of New Spain between 1809 and 1826,--has arisen refreshed from its slumber, so that, according to the best accounts it has ascended to perhaps twenty millions annually in total production, in consequence of the prolific yield of the workings at Fresnillo, Chihuahua, and Sonora, independent of the abundant production at Zacatecas.

One of the most flourishing establishments in 1842, was the Zacatecano-Mejicano Mining Company of Fresnillo. Its 120 shares, which originally cost ,800, were still held by Spaniards and Mexicans. These mines were originally wrought by the state of Zacatecas; but, in 1836, Santa Anna took possession, by an alleged right of conquest, and rented them for twelve years, to the successful company. In the first half year of 1841, they produced ,025,113, at a cost of 1,800, or a clear profit of 3,313.

Mexico, under the colonial system with the immense product of her mines, and notwithstanding the richness of her soil for agricultural purposes, became almost entirely a silver producing country. The policy of Spain was, as we have already often stated, to be the workshop of the New World, while Mexico and Peru were the treasures of the Old. The consequence of this was natural. Mexico, one of the finest agricultural and grazing lands in the world, but with no temptations to export her natural products, as she had no markets for them elsewhere, and no roads, canals, or rivers to convey her products to seaports for shipment even if she had possessed consumers in Europe, at once devoted herself to her mines which were to be both wealth and the representatives of wealth. Her agriculture, accordingly, assumed the standard of the mere national home consumption, while the pastoral and horticultural interests followed the same line, except perhaps, within late years in California, where a profitable trade was carried on by the missions in hides and tallow. From this restrictive law of exportation we of course except vainilla, cochineal and a few other minor articles.

The sources of the wealth of the principal families of Mexico will consequently be found in her mines, and an interesting summary of this aristocracy is given by Mr. Ward in his "Mexico in 1827," to prove the fact. The family of Regla, which possessed large estates in various parts of the country, purchased the whole of them with the proceeds of the mines of Real del Monte. The wealth of the Fagoagas was derived from the great Bonanza of the Pavellon at Sombrerete. The mines of Bala??os founded the Vibancos. Valenciana, Ruhl, Perez-Galvez, and Otero, are all indebted for their possessions to the mines of Valenciana and Villalpando, at Guanajuato. The family of Sardaneta,--formerly Marqueses de Rayas,--took its rise from the mine of that name. Cata and Mellado enriched their original proprietor, Don Francisco Matias de Busto, Marquis of San Clemente. The three successive fortunes of the celebrated Laborde, of whom we shall speak hereafter when we describe Cuernavaca, were derived from the mines of Quebradilla, and San Acasio at Zacatecas, and from the Ca??ada which bore his name at Tlalpujahua. The beautiful estates of the Obregones, near Leon, were purchased with the revenues of the mines of La Purisima and Concepcion, at Catorce; as was also the estate of Malpasso acquired by the Gordoas from the products of La Luz. The Zambranos,--discoverers of Guarisamey,--owned many of the finest properties in Durango; while Batopillas gave the Bustamantes the opportunity to purchase a title and to enjoy an immense unencumbered income.

Nevertheless, some of the large fortunes of Mexico were made either by trade or the possession of vast agricultural and cattle estates in sections of the country where there were either no mines, or where mining was unprofitable. The Agredas were enriched by commerce, while the descendants of Cort?z who received a royal grant of the valley of Oajaca, together with some Spanish merchants in Jalapa and Vera Cruz, derived the chief part of their fortunes from landed estates, cultivated carefully during the period when the Indians were under better agricultural subjection than at present.

Thus the mines, and the mining districts, by aggregating a large laboring population, in a country in which there were, until recently, but few manufactures, and in which the main body of the people engaged either in trades or in tending cattle, became the centre of some of the most active agricultural districts. "The most fertile portions of the table land are the Baxio, which is immediately contiguous to Guanajuato, and comprises a portion of Valladolid, Guadalajara, Queretaro, and Guanajuato. The valley of Toluca, and the southern part of the state of Valladolid, both supply the capital and the mining districts of Tlalpujahua, El Oro, Temascaltepec and Angangeo;--the plains of Pachuca and Appam, which extend on either side to the foot of the mountains upon which the mines of Real del Monte Chico are situated;--Itzmiquilpan, which owes its existence to Zimapan;--Aguas Calientes, by which the great mining town of Zacatecas is supplied;--a considerable circle in the vicinity of Sombrerete and Fresnillo;--the valley of Jarral and the plains about San Luis Potosi, which town again derives its name from the mines of the Cerro de San Pedro, about four leagues from the gates, the supposed superiority of which to the celebrated mines of Potosi in Peru gave rise to the appellation of Potosi. A little farther north we find the district of Matehuala, now a thriving town with more than seven thousand inhabitants, created by the discovery of Catorce, while about the same time, in the latter part of the last century, Durango rose into importance from the impulse given to the surrounding country by the labors of Zambrano at San Dimas and Guarisamey. Its population increased in twelve years from eight to twenty thousand; while whole streets and squares were added to its extent by the munificence of that fortunate miner. To the extreme north, Santa Eulalia gave rise to the town of Chihuahua; Batopilas and El Parral became each the centre of a little circle of cultivation; Jesus Maria produced a similar effect; Mapimi, Cuencame, and Inde, a little more to the southward, served to develope the natural fertility of the banks of the river Nazas; while in the low hot regions of Sonora and Sinaloa, on the western coast, almost every place designated on the map as a town, was originally and generally is still a Real, or district for mines."

The tabular statement on the next page manifests the relative production, and improving or decreasing productiveness, of the several silver districts of Mexico, during the comparatively pacific period of ten years antecedent to the war with the United States which commenced in 1846. Whilst that contest lasted the agricultural and mineral interests and industry of the country of course suffered, and, consequently, it would be unfair to calculate the metallic yield of Mexico upon the basis of that epoch or of the years immediately succeeding.

Comparing the first and second periods of five years, we find a difference in the tax in favor of the latter, of 3,130, on 905,042 marks of silver; showing that in the latter period ,466,596 more were extracted from the Mexican mines than during the former.

In Zacatecas, 33-2/32 per ct. Guanajuato, 21-12/32 " " San Luis Potosi, 7-22/32 " " Pachuca, 6-24/32 " " Guadalajara, 5-4/32 " " Mexico, 4-26/32 " " Durango, 4-18/32 " " Guadalupe y Calvo, 3-24/32 " " Chihuahua y Jesus Maria, 4-18/32 " " In Rosario, Cosala and Mazatlan, 2-26/32 per ct. Sombrerete, 2-22/32 " " Parral, 1-6/32 " " Zimapan, 28/32 " " Alamos, 27/32 " " Hermosillo, 26/32 " " Oajaca, 2/32 " " Tasco, 1/32 " "

These statements do not include the precious metals produced in Mexico, which were either clandestinely disposed of or used in the manufacture of articles of luxury.

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