Page:Historia Verdadera del Mexico profundo.djvu/222

 16. THE COLONY.

As of August 13, 1521, in what is now Mexico; laws, institutions and authorities, product of more than seven thousand five hundred years of cultural development and civilization; that served to stimulate the development of our old grandparents, were discarded and outlawed. Instead, the conqueror first and then the colonizer, imposed their own laws, institutions and authorities, that were not those of Spain. This new judicial and social order was specifically designed to regulate exploitation of the defeated and the degradation of their natural resources, held by spaniards and for the spanish crown. This colonial order is maintained up to this day with some make up, but just as effective.

The indigenous people, defeated and allied to the invaders, soon realized their grave mistake, but it was too late. Hispanic colonial society was born in Mexico, represented by the conquerors. Yesterday the most ruin slag of Medieval Spain, ignorant adventurers, greedy miserable; now converted in great "gentlemen", in some cases, with more wealth and people at their service than the own spanish nobility. The fights and intrigues will be common among the same conquerors first, and then with the royal bureaucracy and traders and investors, that immediately began to arrive, displacing the conquistadors and their descendants.

These stories are a "tragedy" for many conquerors that were displaced by bureaucrats and courtesans who began to arrive in the New Spain. The most obvious case is that of Hernán Cortés himself. His problems with Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, his excesses and his enemies, caught up with him at the end of his life. He died in Spain on December 2, 1547, at the age of 62 without any glory, poor and persecuted by justice, since his enemies pressed charges that led to a long and bureaucratic "trials of residence". ____________________