Iniquity of Spaniards 275 
Indians were very civilised in their way of life, like those of 
Mexico, for they were a people who had come from that 
country, and they had nearly the same language.” 
They had even in one direction reached a pitch of civilisa- 
tion that some of our philanthropists are only now hoping 
for. Women’s rights were acknowledged, and, if anything, 
they appear to have had too much of them. Pascual says: 
“They had many beautiful women. The husbands were 
so much under subjection that if they made their wives 
angry they were turned out of doors, and the wives even 
raised their hands against them.” + Much have the Indians 
changed since then under the dominion of the Spaniard, and 
now all the toil and labour fall to the lot of the weaker sex. 
One custom still remaining amongst the Masaya Indians 
may be a relic of the old days of woman’s superiority. When 
they marry, the goods that the wife had before her marriage 
still belong to her, and if she had a mule or horse, and 
her husband had none, he cannot use hers without her per- 
mission. 
The poor Indians were ground down to the dust by the 
Spaniards with pitiless barbarities. All their possessions 
were seized, and they themselves exported to Panama and 
Peru, and sold as slaves to work at the mines. Even in 
Pascual’s time the country had been greatly depopulated 
by these means. The people were harmless and patient, 
but there was a noble independence about them that could 
not be eradicated, and the Spaniards found it was cheaper 
to bring the negro from Africa, with his light and careless 
nature, than to try to enslave a people who did not resist, 
but who sought a refuge from their persecutors in the grave 
rather than continue in slavery. I shall not harrow the 
feelings of my readers with the mass of treachery, avarice, 
blasphemy, and horrible cruelties with which the conquerors 
rewarded the noble people who entertained them so courte- 
ously. To me the conquest of Mexico, Central America, 
and Peru appears one of the darkest pages in modern history. 
One virtue indeed shone out—undaunted courage; and the 
human mind is so constituted that this single redeeming 
point irresistibly enlists our sympathies. But for this, 
1 This and the other quotation are from the Narrative of Pascual de 
Andagoya, translated by C. R. Markham for the Hakluyt Society. 
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