176 PEESENT STATE OF PERU. Chap. X. 



soldier liad been driven out of the country. Peru was inde- 

 pendent, and the Indians received equal rights with citizens 

 of Spanish descent in the new Kepublic, at least so far, and 

 only so far, as the law could give them. The mita or forced 

 labour was entirely abolished in 1825 ; but the tribute or 

 capitation-tax continued to be exacted until 1854 in Peru, and 

 is still the principal source of revenue in Bolivia, the Upper 

 Peru of Spanish times. It is not, however, quite exact to 

 suppose that this tribute was a capitation-tax ; it was practi- 

 cally at least a rent or tax on the produce of the land, and 

 more resembled the land-tax of India. The tribute was 

 levied on every male between the ages of eighteen and iifty ; 

 but, in point of fact, nearly every individual between those 

 ages cultivated his own piece of land, or shared the produce 

 of a larger piece with several others. Latterly the tribute 

 paid by each Indian generally amounted to five dollars a 

 year ; but, in some villages, the Indians paid double that 

 amount, the exact rule being handed down by tradition, and 

 known to the caciques. Those who paid most enjoyed a 

 more dignified position. The department of Puno yielded 

 300,000 dollars ; that of Cuzco, 400,000. The entire abolition 

 of the tribute by General Castilla in 1854 is a portion of that 

 mad and reckless system of finance by which the revenue 

 of Peru is made to depend almost exclusively on the yield 

 of guano from the Chincha Islands. 



In Bolivia the tribute is still paid by men between the 

 ages of eighteen and fifty : the amount being six to ten 

 dollars a year for proprietors of land, and five dollars for 

 strangers. The revenue from this source amounted, in 1850, 

 to 4,595,000 dollars. 



But though the mita, the reparto, and the tribute have all 

 been abolished by law in Peru, the deplorable civil wars, and 

 the system of keeping up a large standing army, which is not 

 onlv unneeessarv, but most mischievous, have entailed mucli 



