Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/258

250 custom was adopted by the Church of Rome, and might have carried many Indian hearts heavenward in true devotion had the hymns or the prayers been written in a language the natives could understand. It is through these simple, ignorant people that the Church party has always maintained its hold on Mexico. The Indians seem to be grateful for the protection given to them in earlier years by those priests who had devoted their lives for the good of the children of the soil.

The frightful oppressions of the Indians by the colonists were for many years combated by the monks. When Charles V. changed the form of colonial government to that of an audiencia, the president and four councilmen who composed the body seem to have vied with each other in keeping up the pomp and ceremony of court-life, and the labors of the Indians in building their palaces and in bringing provisions for their luxurious establishments were greatly increased. In six or eight months one hundred and thirteen persons, men and women, died from exposure in carrying burdens from distant mines and fields and gardens through the snow and rain of those bleak uplands. The monks, who always sided with the Indians, thundered from the pulpit and the confessional, aiming especially at the auditors, whose sumptuous works were carried on at such a sacrifice of human life. The audiencia, in revenge for some of. the plain sermons of the first bishop of Mexico, cut off his support. He retaliated by excommunicating the audiencia. In 1530 a great junta, or council, was held in Spain, to consider the important questions arising out of the relations between the colonists and their serfs; for such they truly were. The decision was unanimously in favor of the Indians.