ABORIGINES OF SOUTH AMERICA. 37 



civilised as the Aztecs and the other more advanced peoples of the Mexican plateau. 

 Moreover, the Indians of Latin America, includiDg these Mexicans themselves, 

 have displayed more vitality, more power of resisting the destructive forces 

 than the redskins properly so called. While the latter have either disappeared, 

 or been for the most part swept into " reserves," the former still constitute the 

 substratum of the population in the land of their forefathers. 



The Aborigines. 



All sixteenth-century chronicles are unanimous in asserting that the southern 

 continent was thickly peopled at the time when the Conquistadores penetrated into 

 the interior of the New World. Doubtless the leaders of the Spanish bands who 

 carved their way through empires sword in hand often sought to enhance their 

 glory by exaggerating the multitudes they had butchered. But apart from the 

 vapourings of these ruthless adventurers, many a spontaneous remark, many a 

 detail incidentally mentioned in the reports shows that the inhabitants were 

 really numerous. 



Authentic witnesses speak of whole districts, of spacious valleys, of vast 

 plateaux where the natives were crowded together in towns and villages, but- which 

 a hundred years after the arrival of the whites had become complete solitudes. 

 At the present time the heaps of refuse stiU. found after three centuries on the 

 plains of the Peruvian seaboard, as well as on the mountain slopes, the so-called 

 andeiics, or sustaining walls, following like flights of gigantic steps up the sides of 

 the hills, recall the terraces of tilled lands which encircled the mountains as with 

 wreaths of green crops. 



A century after the Pacific slope had been wasted by the Spanish invaders, 

 when the missionaries descended the opposite side into the Amazonian valleys, there 

 also they found the land occupied by numerous tribes. One of them having 

 asked a chief of the Jeberos how many nations dwelt in the forest regions round 

 about, he replied, taking a handful of sand and throwing it into the air, " Count- 

 less as these grains of dust are the nations of this country. Not a lake, not a river, 

 not a hill or a valley, not a plain or a forest but is filled with inhabitants." 



Unquestionably millions of human beings perished through wanton cruelties, 

 and especially by the forced labour imposed on the natives, who were literally 

 worked to death. Their employment under the lash of the overseer in the mines 

 and on the burning soil of the plantations ; no doubt, also, the crushing burdens 

 and weary marches of these " pack animals " along the rough mountain tracks, 

 resulted in the rapid disappearance of nearly all those whom the conquest had 

 delivered into the hands of white employers. Doubtless many tribes were able to 

 avoid ojjpression by taking refuge in the mountains or the forests ; but they were 

 unable to escape the fearful mortality caused by the epidemics following in the 

 wake of the invaders. Thus, in the seventeenth century a great part of the natives 

 perished in the upland Amazonian valleys. Here the only resident whites were 

 the missionaries, who strove to gather the Indians around them in peaceful com- 

 munities ; but by inducing their flocks to change their habits of life, they made 



