r J 



40 Bogota'. 



The greater part of the civilized Indians 

 of Colombia has been, and still is, a class to- 

 tally degraded. They were reduced by the 

 Spanish laws to a state of perpetual pupil- 

 age, and it may be said with truth, that 

 they were the slaves of their priests and their 

 magistrates. Both the one and the other 

 commanded them to be publicly whipped, 

 even though they might be in years, and 

 for the most trifling faults. Thus it is, that 

 living as they did, in a state of debasement 

 and degradation, the energy of their facul- 

 ties, physical and intellectual, has been com- 

 pletely destroyed. Obliged to cultivate their 

 lands in common, they never have improved 

 them; and without higher thoughts than to 

 vegetate mournfully in their villages, they 

 lived in misery, and with difficulty were able 

 to pay the tribute of from six to nine dollars 

 a year, which all the males were bound by 

 law to pay from the age of eighteen years to 

 fifty. 



