Page:Memoir of a tour to northern Mexico.djvu/24

[ 26 ] masters, the enforcement of the Mexican laws against debtors would be sufficient to continue their servitude from generation to generation. This actual slavery exists throughout Mexico, in spite of its liberal constitution; and as long as this contradiction is not abolished, the declamations of the Mexican press against the slavery in the United States must appear as hypocritical cant.

Besides agriculture, the inhabitants of New Mexico pay a great deal of attention to the raising of stock, as horses, mules, cattle, sheep, and goats. Their stock is all rather of a small size, because they care very little for the improvement of the breed; but it increases very fast, and as no feeding in stables is needed in the winter, it gives them very little trouble. There are large tracts of land in New Mexico too distant from water to be cultivated, or in too mountainous parts, which afford, nevertheless, excellent pasturage for millions of stock during the whole year; but unfortunately here, as well as in the State of Chihuahua, the raising of stock has been crippled by the invasions of the hostile Indians, who considered themselves secret partners in the business, and annually take their share away.

A third, much neglected branch of industry in New Mexico are the mines. Great many now deserted mining places in New Mexico prove that mining was pursued with greater zeal in the old Spanish times than at present, which may be accounted for in various ways, as the present want of capital, want of knowledge in mining, but especially the unsettled state of the country and the avarice of its arbitrary rulers. The mountainous parts of New Mexico are very rich in gold, copper, iron, and some silver. Gold seems to be found to a large extent in all the mountains near Santa Fe, south of it in a distance of about 100 miles, as far as Gran Quivira, and north for about 120 miles up to the river Sangre de Cristo. Throughout this whole region gold dust has been abundantly found by the poorer classes of Mexicans, who occupy themselves with the washing of this metal out of the mountain streams. At present the old and the new Placer, near Santa Fe, have attracted most attention, and not only gold washes, but some gold mines too, are worked there. They are, so far as my knowledge extends, the only gold mines worked now in New Mexico. But as I have made from Santa Fe an excursion there for the special purpose of examining those mines, I must refer the reader, in relation to them, to that chapter of my narrative. As to the annual amount of gold produced in New Mexico, I am unable to give even an estimate. But as nearly all the gold of New Mexico is bought up by the traders, and smuggled out of the country to the United States, I believe that a closer calculation of the gold produced in New Mexico could be made in the different mints of the United States than in Mexico itself. Several rich silver mines were, in Spanish times, worked at Avo, at Cerrillos, and in the Nambe mountains, but none at present. Copper is found in abundance throughout the country, but principally at las Tijeras, Jemas, Abiquin, Guadelupita de Mora, etc. I heard of but one copper mine worked at present south of the Placers. Iron, though also abundantly found, is entirely overlooked. Coal has been discovered in different localities, as in the Raton mountains, near the village of Jemez, southwest of Santa Fe, in a place south of the Placers, etc. Gypsum, common and selenite, are found in large quantities in Mexico; most extensive layers of it, I understood, exist in the mountains near Algodones, on the Rio del Norte, and in the neighborhood of the celebrated "Salinas." It is used as common