Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/191

Rh and refractory vagabond Indians who wandered about the territory under the name of Mexicans and Otomies. Whilst they maintained their perfectly nomadic state it was evident that they were useless either as productive laborers for the Spaniards, or as objects of taxation for the sovereign. It was a wise policy, therefore, to attempt what was philanthropically called—their civilization;—but upon this occasion, as upon all the others that preceded it, the failure was signal. Commissioners and notaries were selected and large salaries paid these officials to ensure their faithful services in congregating the dispersed natives. But the government agents, who well knew the difficulty if not the absolute impossibility of achieving the desired object, amused themselves by receiving and spending the liberal salaries disbursed by the government, whilst the Indians still continued as uncontroled as ever. The Count of Monterey was nevertheless obstinately bent on the prosecution of this favorite policy of the king, and squandered, upon these vile ministerial agents, upwards of two hundred thousand dollars, without producing the least beneficial result. In the following viceroy's reign he was sentenced to pay the government this large sum as having been unwisely spent; but was finally absolved from its discharge by the court to which he appealed from the decision of his successor.

In the beginning of 1599, the news was received in Mexico of the death of Philip II. and of the accession of Philip III. This event was perhaps the most remarkable in the annals of the colony, during the last year of the sixteenth century, except that the town of Monterey in New Leon was founded, and that a change was made by the viceroy of the port of Vera Cruz from its former sickly site at la Antigua, to one which has since become equally unhealthy.

The first three years of the seventeenth century were chiefly characterized by renewed viceroyal efforts among the Indians. The project of congregating the nomadic natives was abandoned, and various attempts were made to break up the system of repartimientos, which had been, as we have seen, the established policy of the colony if not of the king, ever since the conquest. If the Indians were abandoned to their own free will, it was supposed that their habits were naturally so thriftless that they would become burthensome instead of beneficial to the Spanish colonists, and, ultimately, might resolve themselves into mere wanderers like the Otomies and their vagabond companions. Yet, it was acknowledged that their involuntary servitude, and the disastrous train of impositions it entailed, were unchristian and