62 



BUENOS AYRES. 



Buenos 



Ayres. 



Method of 

 burying 

 their dead. 



The mulat- 

 tos and 

 mestizos 



employed 

 chiefly in 

 the mecha- 

 nic arts. 



to the brutes with which they are surrounded. With- 

 out education, and under no law or restraint, they 

 give full scope to the indulgence of their desires. 

 Every boundary of modesty is overstepped; and their 

 huts present the most shameless scenes of indecency 

 and debauchery. Accustomed from their infancy to 

 the slaughtering of cattle, which is their chief occu- 

 pation, and even amusement, they become so habi- 

 tuated to blood, that they often kill one another up- 

 on the slightest provocation, and sometimes, indeed, 

 without any particular motive. They are bound by 

 no ties of friendship for one another, nor of gratitude 

 to their masters, however well they may have been 

 treated. They feel themselves free and independent, 

 always ready to follow their own inclinations, and to 

 maintain their own rights. They leave the estancia 

 whenever they please ; and when they have once ta- 

 ken the resolution, no intreaties or promises can in- 

 duce them to remain. They are, however, very hospi- 

 table, and when a stranger happens to come among 

 them, they lodge and entertain him with great civili- 

 ty, without even asking who he is, or where he is 

 going. From the great distance of one estancia from 

 another, some of ihem being from ten to thirty 

 leagues, there are very few churches in these plains, 

 and the shepherds consequently go very seldom to 

 mass ; but they have all a violent desire to be buried 

 in holy ground, which the friends of the deceased sel- 

 dom fail to fulfil. Those who are very far from the 

 church, allow the dead body to putrify in the fields, 

 after having covered it with branches of trees, or 

 stones, to protect it from ravenous animals ; and when 

 there remains nothing but the.bones, they carry them 

 to the priest, who gives them sepulture within the 

 precinct of the church. Others cut up the body, and 

 after carefully separating and cleaning all the bones, 

 and throwing away or burying the flesh, they carry 

 them to the priest. But if the distance does not ex- 

 ceed twenty leagues, the deceased is dressed in his best 

 clothes, and placed on horseback, with his feet in the 

 stirrups, and supported with two pieces of wood fas- 

 tened together in the form of a St Andrew's cross, 

 is carried in procession to the place of burial. Though 

 we have represented these shepherds as consisting 

 generally of Creoles, or Spanish Americans, yet we 

 may observe, that there is among them a considera- 

 ble intermixture of the other classes ; and that even 

 some of the proprietors are free blacks, or men of 

 colour. 



The second class, or people of colour, consists of 

 mulattos and mestizos, with their various collateral 

 branches, from the dark shade of the African to the 

 bright hue of the European. A mulatto is the is- 

 sue of a white and a negro ; and a mestizo of a white 

 and an- Indian ; and the descendents ramify into 

 an endless multiplicity of varieties, which the Spa- 

 niards pretend accurately to mark and to define, but 

 which it would be folly to enumerate. This mixed 

 race constitute the most robust and useful class of 

 the community. The mechanic arts, the retail trades, 

 and the other active functions of society, which the 

 higher class, from pride or indolence, disdain to exer- 

 cise, are chiefly carried on by them ; and almost all 

 the hired servants are taken from this class. Among 

 them are also found professors and teachers of the 



Buenos 

 Ayres. 



liberal arts. The females, however, particularly the 

 mulattos, too frequently devote themselves to mere- _ 



tricious allurements. They dress with great neatness, 

 possess a considerable share of wit and vivacity, and 

 often acquire an ascendency over their paramours, 

 which the Spanish or Creolian women seldom attain. 



The negroes constitute the third class of inhabi- Negroeet 

 tants in this viceroyalty ; and though the Spaniards 

 do not themselves engage in the detestable traffic in 

 human flesh to the African coast, yet they are so far 

 partakers in it, that they make no scruple in buying 

 those that are brought by others. The treatment, 

 however, which this unfortunate race experience in 

 the Spanish settlements, is very different from what 

 their brethren receive in our West Indian colonies. 

 " They form," says Wilcocke, " a principal part of 

 the train of luxury, and are cherished and caressed by 

 their superiors, to whose vanity and pleasures they, 

 are equally subservient. Their dress and appearance 

 are hardly less splendid than that of their masters, 

 whose manners they imitate, and whose passions they 

 imbibe. Elevated by this distinction, they have as- 

 sumed such a tone of superiority over the Indians, 

 and treat them with such insolence and scorn, that 

 the antipathy between the two races has become im- 

 placable." But this description, we fear, must be 

 confined entirely to those who are employed in domes- 

 tic service, and that the same attention and humanity 

 will not be shewn to those who are engaged in agri- 

 cultural labours. By this, however, we do not mean 

 to insinuate, that even these are treated with cruelty 

 or neglect, but merely to regret, that, from the very 

 nature of their situation and employment, they are 

 more exposed to the exact'on and tyranny of task- 

 masters, who are often little solicitous about the feel- 

 ings and comfort of those who are under their con- 

 troul. Yet we must confess, that slavery is not here 

 such a " bitter draught" as it is in the other Ame- 

 rican colonies ; and that the little indulgencies and 

 comforts which the negro is allowed by his Spanish 

 master, cannot but put to shame our English plant- 

 ers, who, with all their boasted notions of freedom, 

 have reduced this unfortunate portion of their species 

 to the most degraded servitude, and who exact from 

 them their utmost labours, with unmitigated severity. 

 According to Azara, many of the slaves in this set- sro e e "hu- 

 tlement never hear the sound of the whip as long as man ely 

 they live ; during sickness, they are treated with trtated by- 

 great kindness and attention, and are never forsaken ^e Spa. 

 in their old age. They are even better fed and bet- mards * 

 ter clothed than the poorer classes of the white in- 

 habitants ; and many of them obtain their freedom 

 after a short period of service. We are sorry, however, 

 to observe, that this humane conduct has not been 

 extended by the Spaniards, to another class of their 

 American subjects, the converted Indians, who can- 

 not be said to be less deserving of their attention and 

 kindness. 



Notwithstanding the constant solicitude of the Spa- Indians, 

 nish court for the security and preservation of her In- 

 dian subjects, and the many regulations which have 

 been made in their favour, this class still groan under 

 many arbitrary and oppressive exactions. The wrongs 

 and insults which they have been made to endure, 

 have completely estranged their affections from their 



