MEXICO 



169 



but sometimes the successor was chosen from among 

 tiie powerful uobles. The monarch wielded despotic 

 power, save in the case of his great feudal vassals ; 

 these exercised a very similar authority over the 

 peasant class, below whom, again, were the slaves. 

 taxation appears to have been heavy in Mexico 

 even then. The laws were severe, nearly every 

 crime being met with capital punishment in some 

 form ; but justice was administered in open courts, 

 the proceedings of which were perpetuated by means 

 if picture-written records. The Mexicans appar- 

 ently believed in one supreme invisible creator 

 of all things, the ruler of the universe ; but the 

 popular faith was polytheistic, with a number of 

 chief and many more inferior divinities, each of whom 

 had his sacred day and festival ; whilst a crowd of 

 nature-spirits peopled the hills and woods. At 

 the head of the Aztec pantheon was the frightful 

 Huitzilopochtli, the Mexican Mars. His temples 

 were the most splendid and imposing; in every 

 city of the empire his altars were drenched with 

 the blood of human sacrifice, to supply victims for 

 which the emperors made war on their neighbours 

 or on any revolted territory, and levied a certain 

 iiiniiluT of men, women, and children by way of 

 indemnity. The victims were borne in triumphal 

 processions, and to the sound of music, to the 

 summit of the great pyramidal temples, where the 

 priests, in sight of n-senibleil crowds, bound them 

 to the sacrificial stone, and, slashing open the 

 breast, tore from it the bleeding heart and held it 

 up before the image of the god, while the captor 

 carried the carcass off to feast on it with his 

 friends. In the years immediately preceding the 

 Spanish conquest not less than 20,000 victims were 

 annually immolated, including infants, for the pro- 

 pitiation of the rain-gods. These atrocities, origin- 

 ally referable to the entire absence of live-stock, 

 were incongruously blended with milder forms of 

 worship, in which fruits, Jlowers, and perfumes 

 were ottered up amid joyous outbursts of song and 

 dance. According to the tradition, Quetzalcoatl, 

 who delighted in these purer sacrifices, had once 

 ri'ignc-d among the Tult< j <-i in the golden age of the 

 world, but, being obliged to retire from earth, he 

 departed by way of the Mexican Gulf, promising 

 to return. This tradition accelerated the success 

 of the Spaniards, wh<i*e light skins and long dark 

 hair and lieards were regarded as evidences of their 

 affinity with the long looked-for divinity. The 

 Mexican priesthood formed a rich and powerful 

 order of the state, and were so numerous that 

 Cortes found as many as 5000 attached to the great 

 temple of Mexico. The education of the young 

 of Injth sexes was entrusted to the priests and 

 priestesses ; and the sacerdotal class were thus 

 able to exercise a widely-dill'used inlluence, which, 

 umli-r the later rulers, was almost equal to that 

 of the emperor himself. The women shared in all 

 the occupations of the men, and were taught, like 

 them, the arts of reading, writing, ciphering, sing- 

 ing in chorus, dam-ing, \c. , and even initiated in 

 the secrets of astronomy and astrology. 



Cortes landed at Vera Cruz in 1519 ; the history 

 of the conquest of the Aztec land is told at length 

 in the article on that greatest of the conquistadores, 

 who gave to Spain what for centuries remained her 

 richest province. Before his energy, and the supe- 

 rior civilisation of his followers, the power of the 

 native empire crumbled away. In 1540 Mexico 

 was united with other American territories at one 

 time all the country from Panama to Vancouver's 

 Island under the name of New Spain, and gov- 

 erned by viceroys (57 in all) appointed by the 

 mother-country. The intolerant spirit of the Cath- 

 olic clergy led to the suppression of almost every 

 trace of the ancient Aztec nationality and civilisa- 

 tion, while the commercial system enforced crippled 



the resources of the colony ; for all foreign trade 

 with any country other than Spain was prohibited 

 on pain of death. The natives were distributed as 

 slaves on the various plantations, though they were 

 also christianised and looked after by the Inquisi- 

 tion, whose last auto-da-fe was held in Mexico 

 city as late as 1815. Mexico was regarded as 

 simply a mine to be worked by the labour of its 

 people for the benefit of Spain. Yet, notwith- 

 standing these drawbacks, it ranked first among 

 all the Spanish colonies in regard to population, 

 material riches, and natural products. For nearly 

 three centuries it may be said to have lain in 

 sullen submission beneath its cruel conquerors' 

 heel, till in 1810 the discontent, which had been 

 gaining ground against the viceregal power during 

 the war of the mother-country with Napoleon, 

 broke into open reliellion under the leadership of a 

 country priest, named Hidalgo. After his defeat 

 and execution in 1811 Morelos, another priest, con- 

 tinued the struggle till he shared the same fate in 

 1815 ; and a guerilla warfare was kept up until, in 

 18-21, the capital was surrendered by O'Donoju (a 

 Spaniard of Irish descent ), the last of the viceroys. 

 In the following year General Iturbide, who in 1821 

 hail issued the plan cle Igttala, providing for the 

 independence of Mexico under a prince of the reign- 

 ing house, had himself proclaimed emperor ; but 

 the guerilla leader Guerrero, his former ally, and 

 General Santa-Anna raised the republican standard, 

 and in 1823 he was banished to Italy with a pension. 

 Returning the following year he was taken and 

 shot, and the federal republic of Mexico was finally 

 established. 



For more than half a century after this (till 

 1876) the history of Mexico is a record of nearly 

 chronic disorder and civil war. Witliin that period 

 the country had fifty-two presidents or dictators, 

 another emperor, and a regcncv ; and in nearly 

 every case the change of administration was 

 brought about with violence, a respectable pro- 

 portion of these great men being ultimately shot 

 by some opposing faction. In 1836 Texas secured 

 its independence, for which it had struggled for 

 several years, and which Mexico was compelled 

 to recognise in 1845. In that year Texas was 

 incorporated with the United States ; but its 

 western boundary was not settled, and the Ameri- 

 cans coveted a particular strip of territory, and 

 sent troops to seize it. The war thus wantonly 

 provoked was continued with great energy by both 

 parties until 1848, when peace was finally con- 

 cluded after several bloody engagements had been 

 fought, and the city of Mexico had been stormed 

 and taken by the Americans under General Scott. 

 As the result of this war Mexico was compelled to 

 cede half a million square miles of territory to her 

 powerful enemy. For the details of the war, see 

 UNITED STATES, and SANTA-ANNA. Under the 

 latter also falls to be told so much as is necessary 

 of the history of the next few years. After his 

 fall in 1855, down to 1867, great confusion pre- 

 vailed. In 1858 Beiiito Juarez (q.v. ) became 

 president, but his claims were contested by General 

 Miramou the head of the reactionaiy or clerical 

 party and the country was plunged in civil war. 

 The acts of wanton aggression and flagrant in- 

 justice perpetrated on foreigners in Mexico during 

 this period of internal disorder, in which the cortes 

 passed an act suspending all payments to foreigners 

 for two years, could not fail to draw upon the 

 Mexican government the serious remonstrance of 

 those European powers whose subjects had just 

 cause of complaint ; and the result was to bring a 

 fleet of English, French, and Spanish ships into 

 the Mexican Gulf for the purpose of enforcing 

 satisfaction. In 1861 the Spaniards disembarked 

 a force at Vera Cruz; and this ste^i was soon 



