30 AGRICULTURISTS TRADITIONARY HABITS ADHERED TO. 



masculine race, eager, not only for gold, but for the establishment 

 of estates which were in fact principalities, and whose beneficial 

 improvement required the employment of large bodies of continual 

 and compulsory laborers. The Indians afforded the staple of this 

 stock at once. The conquest rooted out all their old institutions by 

 violence. Their government and laws were overthrown by force; 

 their religion was changed by power ; their graven idols, the ma- 

 terial emblems of their gods, were ground to dust ; their social sys- 

 tem was completely overturned ; and thus, perfectly annihiliated as 

 a nation, in politics, theology, and domestic life or habits, they 

 were, in the end, but wretched outcasts in their own land. 



The Indians may therefore be regarded as somewhat prepared by 

 degradation for the system of repartimientos, which, as we have 

 already seen in the historical part of this work, was instituted im- 

 mediately after the conquest. 



The aborigines throughout Mexico have been devoted as a class 

 to agricultural labors. Immediately after the conquest the Spaniards 

 forced them to toil in the mines as well as in the fields ; but as soon 

 as a race of mixed blood was found to replace these original la- 

 borers in the bowels of the earth, the native Indian escaped to 

 wilder districts where there were no mines, or where his services 

 were required on the surface of the earth. Besides this, since the 

 revolution, labor has been somewhat more free than before that 

 epoch. The Indian, if not bound to the estate, by the slavery of 

 debt, as we shall see hereafter, has the right to do what he pleases, 

 and consequently he selects that labor which will give him support 

 with least fatigue in a country whose soil is almost spontaneously 

 productive. 



The Mexican Indian, may therefore be generally designated as 

 an agriculturist. A few of them engage in the manufacture of cer- 

 tain elegant fabrics of wool and cotton ; in some of the imitative 

 arts, in which they greatly excel ; and in the formation of utensils 

 for domestic use. 



In the field, the Indian executes all the labor, — sometimes in 

 the midst of the great plantations of sugar, cotton, coffee, corn, to- 

 bacco, wheat, and barley — or, at others, in the midst of the beau- 

 tiful gardens for which some parts of the republic are celebrated. 

 In all these positions his labor is faithfully performed ; — but he is 

 the enemy of all changes in the modes or utensils of his work. 

 He prefers the old system of drawing water for irrigation ; the old 

 system of rooting the earth with the Arab stake instead of the 

 American plough ; the old system of carrying offal, stones, or what- 



