Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/233

Rh MEXICO 219 the regular clergy suppressed, and their monasteries, together with all other superfluous ecclesiastical structures, appropriated by the state. During the last few years American Protestant missions have claimed some partial success, and the so-called &quot; Church of Jesus,&quot; an undenominational body of a somewhat original type, has found a number of adherents, especially on the Anahuac table land. But the Iiuiios bravos, or uncivilized aborigines, everywhere follow the old spirit worship, while the Christianity of the Fideles is little more than a cloak for the continuous practice of the former Aztec heathenism. The pomp of the Roman ritual is supplemented by the feasts of the national worship, and the Pagan deities of the old cult are still represented by the saints of the Roman calendar. 1 Mexico constitutes at present a confederation of states modelled on that of the North- American Union, and administered according to the constitution of 1857 as amended in 1873-74. By popular suffrage are chosen the president, the upper house (fifty-two members), and the supreme judiciary for four years, and the lower house (two hundred and twenty-seven members) for two years. The senate, abolished in 1853, was restored in 1874, and the chief justice is ex ojficio vice-president. The federal states, which are divided into a number of administrative districts, enjoy full autonomy in all local matters. The several constitutions are modelled on that of the central government, and like it comprise three departments legislative, executive, and judicial. Each state is repre sented in the federal congress in the proportion of one member for every 80,000 inhabitants, and in the federal senate by two members elected by suffrage in the local congress. All external affairs and questions of general interest are reserved for the central government. The constitution as now established thus represents in theory the complete overthrow of medisevalism, and the absolute triumph of the new ideas which in the Old World are still in so many places struggling for the ascendency. It is this struggle between privilege and popular rights that lends its human interest to the otherwise monotonous record of unresisted oppression and apparently aimless revolutions which characterize the early and the later periods of Mexican history, from the overthrow of the native rule down to the present day. The early or colonial period covers exactly three hundred years, from the death in 1521 of Guatemozin, last of the Aztec emperors, to the withdrawal of the last Spanish viceroy, Don Juan O Donoju, in 1821. During these three centuries the attitude of the masses was one rather of sullen submission than of active resistance to grinding oppression. By the Spanish Govern ment Mexico was looked on merely as a vast metalliferous region, to be jealously guarded against foreign intrusion and worked exclusively for the benefit of the crown. The natives were evangelized chiefly for the purpose of being employed as slaves above and below ground, and thus was introduced from the West Indies the system of reparti- mientos, or distribution of the aborigines on the plantations and in the mines. But, while this system proved fatal to the natives of Cuba and Hayti, where it had to be replaced by negro labour, the hardier populations of the Anahuac plateau successfully resisted its blighting influences. It proved in fact more disastrous to the oppressor than to the oppressed. In those days Spain was commonly compared to a sieve, never the richer for all the boundless wealth drawn from the New World. But the aborigines derived at least some advantage from contact and partial fusion 1 On tlie general state of religion in Mexico Bates well remarks: &quot;The educated classes conform to the outward ceremonies and ordi nances of the church, while inwardly believing little or nothing of its dogmas. The lower grades of society are, on the other hand, steeped in the most grovelling superstition, intensified by many traditional Indian reminiscences. This section of the community yields a blind obedience to the clergy, notwithstanding the severe laws with which the Government has endeavoured to counteract the influence of the priests. Even so recently as 1874 a genuine case of witch-burning occurred in Mexico.&quot; Central America, p. 34. with a people of superior culture. This fusion, which may be regarded as the chief outcome of the colonial admini stration, has contributed to the formation of the present exceedingly complex Mexican nationality, in which the Indian continues to be the predominating element. Taking the whole population at less than ten millions, its ethnical distribution appears to be at present as under : 1. Full-blood Indians ... 5,000 000 2. Mestizoes (half-caste Indians and whites) 3, oOO, oOO 3. Creoles (whites of Spanish descent) 1,500,000 4. Gachupines 2 (Spaniards by birth) 50,000 5. Other Europeans and Americans 100,000 6. Full-blood negroes 10,000 7. Zambos or &quot;Chinos&quot; (Indo-Africans) 45*000 8. Mulattoes (Eurafricans) 5,000 Under the Spanish administration, which was marked on the surface by few stirring events, such as warlike expedi tions, civil strife, or serious internal troubles, Mexico, or New Spain, formed a viceroyalty at one time stretching from the isthmus of Panama to Vancouver s Island. Antonio de Mendoza, appointed in 1535 after government by audiencias had proved a signal failure, was the first of sixty-four viceroys who ruled with almost autocratic power, but scarcely any of whom has left a name in history. Don Juan de Acuna (1722-34) is mentioned as having been the only native American among them, and Don Juan V. G. Pacheco (1789-94) had at least the merit of betraying some regard for the social welfare of his subjects. Under him a regular police, the lighting and draining of towns, and other municipal improvements were introduced. But down to the early years of the present century all emoluments in church and state, most of the large planta tions, of the mines, and of the commerce of the country, continued to be monopolized by the privileged gachupines, whom the Creoles and mestizoes had already begun to regard as aliens. Hence the first reactionary movements, stimulated by Napoleon s deposition of King Ferdinand and arrest of the viceroy Hurrigaray in 1808, were aimed rather against odious class distinctions and the intolerable oppression of these aliens than against the abstract rights of the Spanish crown. The long smouldering spirit of discontent at last broke into open revolt in 1810 at Guanajuato, under the leadership of Don Miguel Hidalgo. After his defeat and execution in 1811, the struggle was continued by Morelos, who, like Hidalgo, was a priest, and shared his fate in 1815. But he had already called a national assembly at Chilpanzinco, and by this body Mexican independence was for the first time proclaimed in 1813. A guerilla warfare kept the national spirit alive till a fresh stimulus was given to it by the Spanish revolution of 1820. Under the leadership of the &quot;Liberator&quot; Iturbide, Mexican inde pendence was again proclaimed on February 24, 1821, and the same year the capital was surrendered by O Donoju, the last of the viceroys. But even after the revolt had thus been crowned with success a change of personnel rather than of system was contemplated ; nor was Iturbide proclaimed emperor until the Mexican crown had been declined by a royal prince of Spain. Almost simultaneously with this event the republican Period of standard had been raised by Santa Anna at Vera Cruz in (December 1822). Thus the nation had no sooner got rid ence- of foreign rule than it became torn by internal dissension. But henceforth the struggle is not so much against the privileged classes as between Conservative and Liberal principles, the former represented chiefly by the church and the superstitious populace, the latter by the more enlightened but not less unscrupulous sections of the com munity. From both the Indies Bravos, that is, about a third of the whole population, hold entirely aloof, and take advantage of the public disorders to continue their aggres- 2 From the Aztec Gatzopin, centaur ; also known as Chapetanes.