Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/276

268, were so fenced about by these peculiar fueros that there was a never-ceasing conflict between the central authorities and their irresponsible subjects. The result of these long-fostered evils was constant friction. No difference in blood could create so much bitterness as these odious class-distinctions. Gachupine and Creole thoroughly hated each other, while both trod remorse lessly on the Indian.

About thirty-five years after the United States threw off its colonial yoke Mexico was aroused from the uneasy sleep of centuries to take a part in the great struggle for liberty then going on in the world. The fall of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain, in 1808, was the death-knell of absolute monarchy in all her colonies. In that year Charles VI. abdicated in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII. This step, taken in haste, would gladly have been retracted, but Ferdinand would not yield. While father and son were quarreling Napoleon interfered and put his brother, Jerome Bonaparte, on the throne, declaring that the house of Bourbon had now ceased to reign. Ferdinand was obliged to sign the decree of the council of the Indies commanding their Mexican colony to obey the usurper. Strange to say, the gachupines, those creatures of an absolute monarchy, approved of this measure, but the Creoles, in their intense loyalty, publicly burned Ferdinand's enforced proclamation.

In this emergency the viceroy summoned a junta of the chief men in Church and State. For the first time in their history the Creoles were put upon an equality with the gachupines by an invitation to assist at this council. They were delighted, but the old Spaniards were so enraged that they went to the palace of the viceroy and seized him, hurrying him away to prison, where