THE MOJOS INDIANS. 
181 
have contimicd to bo carried over the desolate jiaths of tbe Cordillera, 
while the rich products of the country w'ould have been loft to decay 
and ruin, like its poor brown population. 
Only twice, in a space of more than forty years, did the Govern- 
ment at La Paz deign to remember its subjects on the Mamor6; and 
on both occasions they designed only the robbery of the Missions. In 
1830, or thereabouts, the Indians of the Pueblo de Santa Ana rebelled 
against their Correjidor, whose brawling son had killed then- chieftain 
in a scuffle. The criminal escaped, and in his place the incensed Mojos 
mm'dered the father, whose house they burned down at the same 
time : but their vengeance soon cooled ; they quietly laid down bows 
and arrows, and returned to their wonted occupations. 
Nothing could have been easier than to find out the ringleaders, 
to bring them to trial, and to have them severely punished. The 
Government of the Eeimblic, however, had other intentions than to 
make an example of them. They had long waited at La Paz for an 
opportunity of getting hold of the silver treasure of the Pueblos ; and 
now it had come at last. Some hundreds of soldiers were despatched 
to the Departamento, charged to seize half of the plate of all the fifteen 
Pueblos, the remotest of which, perhaps, had not even heard of the 
committed crime, and to bring it as satisfaction to La Paz. As the 
want of sympathy between the seven different tribes of tlie Missions, 
which might have been insidiously encouraged by the Jesuits, put the 
idea of an organized resistance ont of the question, the pilfering 
soldiery went from Pueblo to Pueblo, and had but to pack up the 
sacred vessels and to load their beasts of burden with them. How 
much Avas carried off in this way cannot now be exactly ascortained ; 
but it may be presumed that it Avas not less than the prescribed half ; 
and at the present day there are, in the fifteen Missions together, 
nearly 100 airobas, that is 3,000 pounds, of siL'er.* 
Put when President Melgarejot — a brutal man, a murderer, and a 
* The cliuroli ia the Mission of S. Pedro alone had 2,000 lb. of silver in the time of 
the .Jesuits. 
I Nothing hears witness more strikingly to the sad political condition of the country 
than the number of its Presidents since the Declaration of Independence, or, perhaps, 
the way in wliieh most of them retired from the scone of politics and — ^lilo. They 
were : 
1. The Libortador, Simon Holivar, bom in Caracas 1784, died 1830. 
2. Mai-shal Jose Ant. de Siuu'O, born at Cumana 1793, nuu’dered 1830. 
