Page:Letters of Cortes to Emperor Charles V - Vol 2.djvu/246

 It is a question, however, whether this treatment was worse than they had suffered from their Mexican owners. Cortes affirms that it was not, and that the threat they most feared was to be sold back to the Aztecs. On the other hand, Motolinia describes the Spanish system as the "sixth plague." I have elsewhere read that the Aztec system was a purely patriarchal one, and that such slaves as were not destined for human sacrifices had everything but their freedom; it being also against the law to sell them, while their children were all born free, and they could hold property of their own. It may indeed be that the Aztec law provided such humane protections, but then we have seen that the Spanish laws were also numerous and beneficient, so that the actual fate of the slave cannot be gauged by the spirit of the laws, but by the observance of them.

The Tlascalans were exempt from the prevailing system, in recognition of their services during the conquest, and, in 1537, they themselves suppressed slavery and serfage of every sort within their province, a measure which was approved by the Viceroy.

The system of encomiendas was finally abolished in Mexico under Charles III.